Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 72 years remaining on my flat in Plympton. I now wish to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What are my options?

On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have done all that could be expected to locate the lessor. On the whole a specialist would be useful to try and locate and prepare an expert document to be used as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor both on investigating the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Plympton.

I have just appointed agents to market my ground floor apartment in Plympton.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge demand – Do I pay up?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should 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 management companies 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 looking at a couple of apartments in Plympton both have in the region of forty five years remaining on the leases. Do I need to be concerned?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Plympton is a wasting asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The nearer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it reduces the value of the property. For most buyers and mortgage companies, leases with less than 75 years become less and less attractive. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the property for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of property with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Plympton conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. More often than not it is possible to negotiate informally with the freeholder to extend the lease You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agency in Plympton where we have experienced a few leasehold sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local Plympton conveyancing firms. Could you confirm whether the owner of a flat can commence the lease extension process 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 kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer need not have to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as completion of the sale.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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.

Are there frequently found problems that you come across in leases for Plympton properties?

Leasehold conveyancing in Plympton is not unique. Most leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain sections are wrong. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

A defective lease will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Accord Mortgages Ltd, Barnsley Building Society, and Britannia all have very detailed requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the buyer to pull out.

I inherited a ground floor flat in Plympton, conveyancing having been completed 2009. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Similar properties in Plympton with an extended lease are worth £252,000. The ground rent is £55 charged once a year. The lease expires on 21st October 2095

With just 70 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £12,400 and £14,200 plus costs.

The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs without more comprehensive investigations. Do not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be other issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Plympton