Fixed-fee leasehold conveyancing in Rhymney:

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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Rhymney, you will need to chose a conveyancing lawyer with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Halifax, Yorkshire Building Society or Nationwide make sure you find a lawyer on their panel. Find a Rhymney conveyancing lawyer with our search tool

Rhymney leasehold conveyancing: Q and A’s

I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Rhymney. Before I get started I would like to find out the unexpired term of the lease.

Assuming the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Rhymney - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars 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.

There are only 72 years left on my lease in Rhymney. I now wish to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What should I do?

If 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 lengthened by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the lessor. In some cases a specialist may be useful to try and locate and to produce a report to be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Rhymney.

I’m about to sell my 2 bed flat in Rhymney.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just received a yearly maintenance charge invoice – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

It best that you discharge 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. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in Rhymney where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received conflicting advice from local Rhymney conveyancing firms. Can you clarify whether the seller 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 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 buyer.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Rhymney from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

  • Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Rhymney can be bypassed where you get in touch lawyers the minute you market your property and request that they start to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers conveyancers.
  • Many landlords or Management Companies in Rhymney levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the actual amount of the charges. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most usual cause of frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Rhymney.
  • In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s consent? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Rhymney state that internal structural changes or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence from the Landlord acquiescing to such changes. Should you fail to have the consents to hand you should not contact the landlord without checking with your solicitor before hand.
  • A minority of Rhymney leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are able to meet the annual 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 purchasers or their lawyers.
  • If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property where there is a current dispute. You may need to swallow your pride 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 prior to 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 clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to ongoing.

    • Leasehold Conveyancing in Rhymney - Sample of Questions you should ask Prior to buying

      Most Rhymney leasehold apartments will incur a service charge for maintenance of the building levied on behalf of the management company. Should you acquire the flat you will have to pay this charge, usually quarterly throughout the year. This could differ from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built blocks. In all likelihood there will be a rentcharge to be met yearly, normally this is not a large sum, say about £50-£100 but you need to enquire it because sometimes it could be many hundreds of pounds. This question is useful as a) areas could cause problems in the block as the communal areas may begin to deteriorate where repairs remain unpaid b) if the leasehold owners have a dispute with the running of the building you will wish to have full disclosure Is anyone aware of any major works on the horizon that could add a premium to the service charges?

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Rhymney