There are only Sixty One years unexpired on my lease in Yiewsley. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is can not be found. What are my options?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be extended by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to find the freeholder. In some cases a specialist would be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be used as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Yiewsley.

Back In 2009, I bought a leasehold flat in Yiewsley. Conveyancing and Coventry Building Society mortgage went though with no issue. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the freehold. Attached was a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1996. The conveyancing practitioner in Yiewsley who acted for me is not around.Do I pay?

First contact the Land Registry to make sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is in fact the new freeholder. It is not necessary to incur the fees of a Yiewsley conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I work for a long established estate agent office in Yiewsley where we have witnessed a few leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Yiewsley conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer need not have to wait 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.

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 purchaser.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £325000 apartment in Yiewsley next Thursday . The management company has quoted £312 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Yiewsley?

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

• Answering pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Yiewsley
• 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 Yiewsley leasehold property is £350. For Yiewsley 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 the information.

I own a ground floor flat in Yiewsley. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the premium payable for the purchase of the freehold?

if there is a absentee freeholder or if there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to calculate the sum to be paid.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Yiewsley flat is 164 Nestles Avenue in October 2013. The tribunal agreed with the proposed price of £20,158 for the freehold and determined that that sum is the amount to be paid into court This case related to 2 flats. The the unexpired residue of the current lease was 69 years.

Are there common problems that you witness in leases for Yiewsley properties?

Leasehold conveyancing in Yiewsley is not unique. Most leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain sections are wrong. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

You could encounter a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Lloyds TSB Bank, Barnsley Building Society, and Aldermore all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Yiewsley