I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in St Leonard Shoreditch. Before I set the wheels in motion I want to be sure as to the unexpired term of the lease.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and 99.9% are in St Leonard Shoreditch - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details 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.

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agent office in St Leonard Shoreditch where we see a few flat sales jeopardised due to short leases. I have received conflicting advice from local St Leonard Shoreditch conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm 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 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 buyer can avoid having to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed 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.

Can you offer any advice when it comes to choosing a St Leonard Shoreditch conveyancing firm to deal with our lease extension?

When appointing a conveyancer for your lease extension (regardless if they are a St Leonard Shoreditch conveyancing firm) it is most important that he or she should be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of conveyancing. We advise that you speak with several firms including non St Leonard Shoreditch conveyancing practices before you instructing a firm. Where the conveyancing practice is ALEP accredited then so much the better. Some following of questions might be helpful:

• How familiar is the practice with lease extension legislation?

If the firm is not ALEP accredited then what is the reason?

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in St Leonard Shoreditch from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in St Leonard Shoreditch can be reduced if you instruct lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the purchasers’ representatives.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s permission? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? St Leonard Shoreditch leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or addition of wooden flooring require a licence from the Landlord approving such changes. Should you fail to have the paperwork in place do not communicate with the landlord without contacting your conveyancer before hand.

Some St Leonard Shoreditch leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are financially capable of paying 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 buyers or their solicitors.

If you have had conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to discharge 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 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 reveal the dispute as over as opposed to ongoing.

If you are supposed to have a share in the Management Company, you should make sure that you are holding the original share certificate. Arranging a new share certificate can be a time consuming formality and frustrates many a St Leonard Shoreditch home move. Where a duplicate share is needed, do contact the company officers or managing agents (where relevant) for this as soon as possible.

Completion in due on the disposal of our £350000 maisonette in St Leonard Shoreditch in nine days. The managing agents has quoted £324 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in St Leonard Shoreditch?

For the majority of leasehold sales in St Leonard Shoreditch conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in St Leonard Shoreditch
• 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 Leonard Shoreditch leasehold property is £350. For St Leonard Shoreditch 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 obliged to supply answers.

I own a two-bedroom flat in St Leonard Shoreditch. Given that I can not reach agreement with the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the premium payable for the purchase of the freehold?

if there is a absentee freeholder or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant legislation you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to arrive at the sum to be paid.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a St Leonard Shoreditch flat is 137 & 139 Haberdasher Street in December 2013. The Tribunal determines in accordance with section 48 and Schedule 13 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 that the premium for the extended lease for each Property should be £12,350.00. This case affected 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 72.39 years.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in St Leonard Shoreditch