I only have 68 years left on my lease in Reading. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What options are available to me?

On the basis that you qualify, 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 mean that your lease can be lengthened by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have used your best endeavours to locate the freeholder. On the whole a specialist should be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report to be used as proof that the freeholder can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Reading.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Reading. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before my ownership?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee 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 be sure 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 work for a long established estate agency in Reading where we see a number of flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Reading conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can commence 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 start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser 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 simultaneously with completion of the sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete our sale of a £ 400000 flat in Reading in just under a week. The freeholder has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Reading?

For most leasehold sales in Reading 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-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Reading
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Reading leasehold property is £350. For Reading 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 answers.

Are there common deficiencies that you see in leases for Reading properties?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Reading. All leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain provisions are missing. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain parts of the building
• Insurance obligations
• 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 can cause issues when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Barclays , Chelsea Building Society, and Aldermore all have very detailed requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

I acquired a ground floor flat in Reading, conveyancing was carried out 1998. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Equivalent properties in Reading with a long lease are worth £255,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 levied per year. The lease ends on 21st October 2093

With 67 years remaining on your lease the likely cost is going to range between £12,400 and £14,200 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs without more detailed investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action placing reliance on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.