I am intending to sublet my leasehold apartment in St Austell. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask her. Do I need to ask my freeholder for permission?

Your lease governs relations between the landlord and you the flat owner; in particular, it will set out if subletting is not allowed, or permitted but only subject to certain conditions. The rule is that if the lease contains no specific ban or restriction, subletting is permitted. The majority of leases in St Austell do not contain strict prohibition on subletting – such a provision would undoubtedly devalue the flat. Instead, there is usually simply a requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly supplying a duplicate of the sublease.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a couple of flats in St Austell both have about fifty years left on the lease term. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in St Austell. The lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As a lease gets shorter the marketability of the lease deteriorate and it becomes more costly to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is advisable to extend the lease term. More often than not it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage companies less inclined to grant a loan on properties of this type. Lease extension can be a difficult process. We advise that you get professional assistance from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

I've recently bought a leasehold flat in St Austell. 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. It is an essential part 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 am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in St Austell where we have witnessed a few leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local St Austell conveyancing firms. Can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can start the lease extension formalities 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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser 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 prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

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 purchaser.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £ 500000 maisonette in St Austell next Tuesday . The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and 3 years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in St Austell?

For most leasehold sales in St Austell conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Completing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in St Austell
• 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 solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for St Austell leasehold premises is £350. For St Austell 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 the information.

I purchased a 1st floor flat in St Austell, conveyancing having been completed 8 years ago. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Similar properties in St Austell with a long lease are worth £257,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 invoiced every year. The lease ceases on 21st October 2101

With 75 years unexpired we estimate the price of your lease extension to range between £11,400 and £13,200 as well as costs.

The suggested premium range that we have given is 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 tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt other issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.