I am looking at a couple of apartments in West Heath both have about forty five years unexpired on the leases. should I be concerned?

There are plenty of short leases in West Heath. The lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As a lease shortens the marketability of the lease reduces and results in it becoming more costly to extend the lease. This is why it is generally wise to extend the lease term. Sometimes it is difficulties arise selling premises with a short lease as mortgage lenders less inclined to grant a loan on such properties. Lease extension can be a protracted process. We recommend you seek professional assistance from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this field

I've recently bought a leasehold property in West Heath. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to 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. 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 a negotiator for a reputable estate agent office in West Heath where we have experienced a few leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local West Heath conveyancing firms. Could you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities 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 can avoid having to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to agree the lease extension with the freeholder 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.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in West Heath with the intention of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in West Heath can be avoided where you instruct lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the buyers representatives.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s permission? Have you, for example laid down wooden flooring? West Heath leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such alterations. If you fail to have the approvals in place you should not contact the landlord without checking with your conveyancer before hand.

Some West Heath leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.

If there is a history of conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved before the property is put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing a property where a dispute is ongoing. You may need to swallow your pride and discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.

If you hold a share in a the Management Company, you should ensure that you hold the original share document. Obtaining a re-issued share certificate is often a lengthy formality and slows down many a West Heath conveyancing transaction. Where a reissued share certificate is necessary, do contact the company officers or managing agents (if relevant) for this as soon as possible.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £225000 apartment in West Heath on Thursday in a week. The management company has quoted £348 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in West Heath?

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

• Addressing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in West Heath
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• 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 required to provide the information.

I am the proprietor of a second floor flat in West Heath. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the amount due for the purchase of the freehold?

Where there is a absentee freeholder or if there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant legislation it is possible to make an application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to determine the premium.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal 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 unexpired term was 76 years.