I am intending to rent out my leasehold flat in West Heath. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask him. Do I need to ask my freeholder for their consent?

Your lease governs relations between the landlord and you the leaseholder; specifically, it will say if subletting is banned, or permitted but only subject to certain conditions. The rule is that if the lease contains no expres ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. Most leases in West Heath do not prevent an absolute prevention of subletting – such a clause would undoubtedly devalue the property. In most cases there is a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly sending a duplicate of the tenancy agreement.

Back In 2005, I bought a leasehold flat in West Heath. Conveyancing and Barclays Direct mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the freehold. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1991. The conveyancing practitioner in West Heath who acted for me is not around.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is contact the Land Registry to make sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to incur the fees of a West Heath conveyancing lawyer to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. You should note that regardless, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in West Heath. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part 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 employed by a busy estate agency in West Heath where we have witnessed a few flat sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local West Heath conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the buyer?

As long as the seller has been the owner 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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser need not have 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 at the same time as 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 buyer.

We expect to complete the disposal of our £475000 garden flat in West Heath next week. The managing agents has quoted £384 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in West Heath?

For the majority of leasehold sales in West Heath conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Completing conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in West Heath
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for West Heath leasehold premises is £350. For West Heath conveyancing transactions it is customary for the seller to pay for these costs. The landlord or their agents are under no legal obligation to answer such questions most will be willing to do so - albeit often at exorbitant prices where the fees bear little relation to the work involved. Unfortunately there is no law that requires fixed charges for administrative tasks. Neither is there any legal time frame by which they are obliged to supply the information.

I am the registered owner of a a ground floor purpose built flat in West Heath. In the absence of agreement between myself and the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the premium due for a lease extension?

Where there is a absentee landlord or where there is dispute about the premium for a lease extension, under the relevant statutes it is possible to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to arrive at the price.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a West Heath property 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 related to 13 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 76 years.