I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Mildmay. Before diving in I require certainty as to the number of years remaining on the lease.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and almost all are in Mildmay - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details 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.

I have just started marketing my ground floor flat in Mildmay.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a quarterly service charge demand – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

It best that you discharge the invoice 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. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I am a negotiator for a reputable estate agency in Mildmay where we have experienced a few leasehold sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Mildmay conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that 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. This means that the buyer can avoid having 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.

We expect to complete the disposal of our £ 125000 apartment in Mildmay in just under a week. The freeholder has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Mildmay?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Mildmay conveyancing will involve, questions about 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 Mildmay
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Mildmay leasehold property is £350. For Mildmay 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.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Mildmay what are the most frequent lease problems?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Mildmay. All leases is drafted differently and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain provisions are missing. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the building
• A duty to insure the building
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

You may have difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Halifax, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and TSB all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the purchaser to pull out.

Mildmay Leasehold Conveyancing - Examples of Questions you should ask before Purchasing

Plenty Mildmay leasehold apartments will have a service bill for the upkeep of the building invoiced on behalf of the management company. If you purchase the property you will have to meet this contribution, usually periodically during the year. This may vary from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built buildings. There will also be a ground rent to be met annual, this is usually not a significant sum, say around £50-£100 but you need to check as sometimes it can be many hundreds of pounds. In the main the outlay for major works are not included within maintenance charges, albeit that a few managing agents in Mildmay ask leaseholders to pay into a reserve fund and this is used to offset against major works.