Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Fifty years unexpired on my lease in Purfleet. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What options are available to me?

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 granted an extra 90 years by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to locate the landlord. On the whole an enquiry agent may be useful to try and locate and prepare a report to be used as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Purfleet.

I have just started marketing my garden flat in Purfleet.Conveyancing is yet to be initiated but I have just received a half-yearly maintenance charge demand – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should 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 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 tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two flats in Purfleet which have about 50 years left on the leases. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in Purfleet. The lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As the lease shortens the value of the lease reduces and results in it becoming more costly to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is advisable to extend the lease term. It is often difficulties arise selling premises with a short lease as mortgage lenders may be unwilling to lend money on properties of this type. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We recommend you seek professional help from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Purfleet from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Purfleet can be reduced where you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s approval? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Purfleet leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or installing wooden flooring calls for a licence from the Landlord consenting to such alterations. Should you fail to have the approvals in place do not communicate with the landlord without contacting your conveyancer before hand.

A minority of Purfleet leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, 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 able to meet 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 actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers.

If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is an ongoing dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to present the dispute as over rather than unresolved.

You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but you should verify this via your conveyancers. A purchaser's lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the lease term is less than 75 years. In the circumstances it is important at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease term for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

All being well we will complete the disposal of our £150000 maisonette in Purfleet next week. The landlords agents has quoted £360 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Purfleet?

Purfleet conveyancing on leasehold flats nine out of ten times involves fees being levied by freeholders :

• Addressing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Purfleet
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• 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 Purfleet leasehold property is £350. For Purfleet 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 answers.

Having spent years of negotiations we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Purfleet. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

Most certainly. We can put you in touch with a Purfleet conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Purfleet property is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case affected 13 flats. The the number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 76 years.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Purfleet