I only have Fifty years left on my flat in Southam. I am keen to get lease extension but my landlord is missing. What are my options?

If 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 magistrate. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to locate the freeholder. On the whole an enquiry agent would be helpful to try and locate and to produce a report to be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Southam.

Due to sign contracts shortly on a garden flat in Southam. Conveyancing lawyers assured me that they are sending me a report within the next couple of days. What should I be looking out for?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Southam should include some of the following:

• You should receive a copy of the lease

I own a leasehold flat in Southam. Conveyancing and Nottingham Building Society mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1996. The conveyancing practitioner in Southam who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is contact HMLR to be sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to instruct a Southam conveyancing practitioner to do this as it can be done on-line for less than a fiver. You should note that regardless, 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 looking at a two apartments in Southam which have in the region of forty five years unexpired on the leases. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold apartment in Southam is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The closer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it adversely affects the salability of the property. The majority of buyers and mortgage companies, leases with under eighty years become less and less attractive. 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 Southam 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 They may agree to a smaller lump sum and an increase in the ground rent, but to shorter extension terms in return. 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 busy estate agent office in Southam where we have witnessed a few flat sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Southam conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

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 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.

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.

Southam Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Queries Prior to buying

Plenty Southam leasehold apartments will incur a service charge for the upkeep of the block levied by the management company. If you acquire the property you will have to pay this charge, normally periodically accross the year. This may be anything from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for buildings with lifts and large common areas. In all probability there will be a rentcharge to be met annual, this is usually not a large figure, say about £25-£75 but you should to check it because on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds. For most Southam leaseholds the outlay for major works are not included within maintenance charges, although a few managing agents in Southam obliged leaseholders to pay into a sinking fund created for the specific purpose of building a fund for larger works. How is the lease structured?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Southam