I would like to rent out my leasehold flat in St James. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask her. Do I need to ask my freeholder for permission?

Even though your last St James conveyancing solicitor is no longer available you can check your lease to see if it allows you to sublet the property. The accepted inference is that if the deeds are non-specific, subletting is allowed. There may be a precondition that you must seek permission via your landlord or some other party in advance of subletting. The net result is you not allowed to sublet in the absence of prior permission. The consent should not be unreasonably refused ore delayed. If the lease does not allow you to sublet you should ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

I've recently bought a leasehold flat in St James. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before my ownership?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, 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 ensure 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 reputable estate agent office in St James where we have experienced a few leasehold sales jeopardised due to short leases. I have been given inconsistent advice from local St James conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm 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 been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-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 sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or at the same time as 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 buyer.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in St James from the point of view of expediting the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in St James can be avoided where you get in touch lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• Many landlords or Management Companies in St James charge for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should find out the actual amount of the charges. The management pack sought on or before finding a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most common reason for delay in leasehold conveyancing in St James.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s permission? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? St James leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring calls for a licence from the Landlord consenting to such alterations. Where you dont have the approvals to hand you should not contact the landlord without checking with your solicitor in the first instance.
• A minority of St James leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.
• If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where there is an ongoing dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as over as opposed to ongoing.

All being well we will complete the disposal of our £ 450000 flat in St James on Monday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in St James?

For the majority of leasehold sales in St James 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 enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in St James
• Supplying insurance information
• 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 St James leasehold property is £350. For St James 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 provide the information.

Following years of correspondence we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in St James. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

if there is a missing landlord or where there is dispute about the premium for a lease extension, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the LVT to decide the amount due.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a St James residence is Flats 12A & 19, Evelyn Mansions Carlisle Place in June 2009. The Tribunal held that the price to be paid for the new lease of Flat 12A is £168,824, For the other flat the price was set at £169,110 This case affected 2 flats. The unexpired term was 56 years.

I am the registered owner of a 1st floor flat in St James, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Comparable properties in St James with over 90 years remaining are worth £244,000. The ground rent is £50 invoiced annually. The lease comes to an end on 21st October 2082

With 56 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £27,600 and £31,800 as well as professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be additional issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.