I have recently realised that I have Seventy years remaining on my flat in Rye. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is absent. What are my options?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the Court. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you have made all reasonable attempts to find the freeholder. In some cases a specialist should be useful to try and locate and prepare a report to be used as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Rye.

Back In 2002, I bought a leasehold house in Rye. Conveyancing and HSBC Bank mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. Attached was a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1997. The conveyancing solicitor in Rye who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

First make enquiries of the Land Registry to be sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. It is not necessary to incur the fees of a Rye conveyancing lawyer to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two apartments in Rye both have approximately forty five years unexpired on the leases. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There is no doubt about it. A leasehold flat in Rye is a wasting asset as a result of the shortening lease. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it reduces the salability of the premises. For most purchasers and banks, leases with under eighty years become less and less marketable. On a more positive 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 a residence 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 Rye conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending 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 employed by a long established estate agent office in Rye where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Rye conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can initiate 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having 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.

An alternative approach is 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 buyer.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Rye with the aim of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Rye can be bypassed if you get in touch lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
• Some Rye leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying 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 purchasers or their solicitors.
• If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved prior to the flat being put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing a property where a dispute is unsettled. You will have to accept that you will have to 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 are still duty bound to disclose particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to present the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.
• If you are supposed to have a share in the freehold, you should ensure that you have the original share document. Arranging a new share certificate is often a time consuming process and slows down many a Rye conveyancing deal. Where a reissued share is necessary, do contact the company officers or managing agents (where applicable) for this at the earliest opportunity.
• You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be advisable verify this via your solicitors. A purchaser's conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to where the remaining number of years is under 80 years. In the circumstances it is essential at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Rye - Examples of Queries Prior to Purchasing

What prohibitions exist in the Rye Lease?