Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in West Heath. Before I get started I would like to find out the number of years remaining on the lease.

If the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in West Heath - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

Jane (my partner) and I may need to let out our West Heath ground floor flat for a while due to a career opportunity. We used a West Heath conveyancing firm in 2003 but they have closed and we did not think at the time seek any advice as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

Some leases for properties in West Heath do contain a provision to say that subletting is only allowed with permission. The landlord cannot unreasonably refuse but, in such cases, they would need to review references. Experience dictates that problems are usually caused by unsatisfactory tenants rather than owner-occupiers and for that reason you can expect the freeholder to take up the references and consider them carefully before granting permission.

I've recently bought a leasehold flat in West Heath. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before completion of my purchase?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I am a negotiator for a reputable estate agency in West Heath where we have experienced a number of flat sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local West Heath conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in West Heath from the point of view of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in West Heath can be reduced where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers lawyers.
• In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s permission? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? West Heath leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or addition of wooden flooring calls for a licence issued by the Landlord approving such changes. Should you fail to have the consents to hand you should not contact the landlord without checking with your solicitor first.
• Some West Heath leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. Any bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying the yearly service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their solicitors.
• If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved prior to the flat being marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing a property where there is an ongoing dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and discharge any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to present the dispute as historic rather than unresolved.
• You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be wise to verify this via your conveyancers. A buyer’s lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to to exchange contracts if the lease term is less than 80 years. In the circumstances it is important at an early stage that you identify whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

Having spent years of correspondence we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in West Heath. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

if there is a absentee freeholder or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant legislation it is possible to make an application to the LVT to calculate the price payable.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a West Heath residence is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case was in relation to 13 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 76 years.

Leasehold Conveyancing in West Heath - A selection of Questions you should consider before Purchasing

Most West Heath leasehold apartments will be liable to pay a service bill for maintenance of the block levied on behalf of the landlord. Should you buy the flat you will have to meet this charge, usually in instalments accross the year. This may vary from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for large purpose-built buildings. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, ordinarily this is not a exorbitant figure, say around £50-£100 but you need to check it because on occasion it could be many hundreds of pounds. In the main the cost for major works tend not to be included within maintenance charges, although some managing agents in West Heath require leasehold owners to pay into a reserve fund and this is used to offset against major works.