There are only Seventy years remaining on my lease in Penistone. I am keen to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What should I do?

On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 demonstrate that you have made all reasonable attempts to find the lessor. On the whole an enquiry agent should be helpful to try and locate and prepare an expert document which can be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Penistone.

Due to complete next month on a ground floor flat in Penistone. Conveyancing solicitors inform me that they will have a report out to me on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Penistone should include some of the following:

• Defining your rights in relation to common areas in the building.For example, does the lease permit a right of way over an accessway or hallways?

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Penistone. 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. A critical element 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 agent office in Penistone where we see a few flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Penistone conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start 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 sit tight for 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 at the same time as 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 purchaser.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete our sale of a £425000 garden flat in Penistone on Tuesday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £396 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Penistone?

Penistone conveyancing on leasehold flats more often than not requires the purchaser’s conveyancer submitting enquiries for the landlord to address. Although the landlord is not legally bound to address such questions most will be content to do so. They are at liberty invoice a reasonable charge for answering questions or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the paperwork that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some transactions it is in excess of £800. The management information fee invoiced by the landlord must be accompanied by a summary of entitlements and obligations in relation to administration fees, otherwise the charge is technically not due. In reality one has no option but to pay whatever is demanded if you want to exchange contracts with the buyer.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Penistone - A selection of Queries before buying

Who are the managing agents? If a Penistone lease has fewer than eighty years it will have adverse implications on the salability of the property. Check with your lender that they are content with residual term of the lease. A short lease means that you will almost definitely have to extend the lease at some point and it is worth discovering how much this will be. Remember, in most cases you will be be obliged to have been the owner of the premises for 24 months in order to be entitled to exercise a lease extension. Its a good idea to find out as much as you can regarding the managing agents as they can either make living at the property much easier or uncomfortable. Being a leasehold owner you are often in the clutches of the managing agents from a financial perspective and when it comes to practical matters like the tidiness of the communal areas. Ask other people whether they are happy with their service. Finally, investigate as to the dates that the maintenance charges are due to the appropriate party and precisely how they are spending that money.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Penistone