There are only 62 years remaining on my lease in Worcester Park. I need to get lease extension but my landlord is can not be found. What should I do?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be extended by the Court. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to find the landlord. In some cases a specialist should be helpful to carry out a search and to produce a report to be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Worcester Park.

I have just started marketing my ground floor flat in Worcester Park.Conveyancing solicitors are to be appointed soon but I have just had a half-yearly service charge invoice – what should I do?

The sensible thing to do is clear the service charge as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I am employed by a reputable estate agent office in Worcester Park where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Worcester Park conveyancing firms. Can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that 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 proposed purchaser need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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 Worcester Park from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Worcester Park can be reduced where you get in touch lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• Many landlords or managing agents in Worcester Park levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most common cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Worcester Park.
• Some Worcester Park leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are 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 purchasers or their solicitors.
• If you have had conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be concerned about purchasing a property where there is an ongoing dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to discharge any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. 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 particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as over as opposed to unsettled.
• If you have the benefit of shareholding in the Management Company, you should ensure that you hold the original share document. Arranging a re-issued share certificate can be a time consuming formality and delays many a Worcester Park home move. If a reissued share is necessary, do contact the company officers or managing agents (if relevant) for this at the earliest opportunity.

All being well we will complete the disposal of our £ 275000 flat in Worcester Park next week. The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Worcester Park?

Worcester Park conveyancing on leasehold apartments typically results in administration charges invoiced by freeholders :

• Addressing conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Worcester Park
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Worcester Park leasehold property is £350. For Worcester Park 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 supply answers.

I own a second floor flat in Worcester Park. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the amount due for the purchase of the freehold?

in cases where there is a absentee landlord or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to assess the sum to be paid.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Worcester Park flat is 33 The Maisonettes Alberta Avenue in June 2014. the Tribunal decided that the premium payable for the grant of a new lease be the sum of £20,680 (Twenty Thousand six hundred and eighty pounds). This case related to 1 flat. The unexpired lease term was 60.43 years.

Worcester Park Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to buying

The best form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this arrangement the leaseholders enjoy control and even though a managing agent is frequently retained where it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent is directed by the tenants. How is the lease structured?