I am in need of some leasehold conveyancing in St Neots. Before I get started I require certainty as to the unexpired term of the lease.

If the lease is registered - and most are in St Neots - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars 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.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in St Neots. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before completion of my purchase?

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. A critical element 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 employed by a long established estate agent office in St Neots where we see a few flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local St Neots conveyancing firms. Could you clarify whether the seller of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as 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 buyer can avoid having to wait 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 simultaneously with completion of the sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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 buyer.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in St Neots with the purpose of expediting the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in St Neots can be bypassed if you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information needed by the buyers representatives.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the premises would they have required Landlord’s permission? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Most leases in St Neots state that internal structural changes or laying down wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such changes. If you dont have the consents to hand you should not contact the landlord without checking with your solicitor in the first instance.

If you have had any disputes with your landlord or managing agents it is essential that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be concerned about purchasing a property where a dispute is unresolved. You may have to bite the bullet and 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 details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to present the dispute as over as opposed to ongoing.

If you hold a share in a the freehold, you should make sure that you hold the original share document. Organising a new share certificate can be a lengthy process and frustrates many a St Neots conveyancing deal. If a duplicate share is required, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (if relevant) for this sooner rather than later.

You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be advisable verify this by asking your solicitors. A buyer’s lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to to exchange contracts if 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 for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

Completion in due on our sale of a £375000 maisonette in St Neots in 5 days. The freeholder has quoted £372 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in St Neots?

St Neots conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes normally results in fees being levied by managing agents :

• Addressing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in St Neots
• 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 Neots leasehold property is £350. For St Neots 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.

Leasehold Conveyancing in St Neots - Examples of Queries Prior to Purchasing

If a St Neots lease has no more than eighty years it will have adverse implications on the value of the property. It is worth checking with your bank that they are happy with the length of the lease. Leases with less than 80 years remaining means that you will almost definitely require a lease extension at some point and you need to have some idea of how much this would cost. Remember, in most cases you would need to own the premises for two years before you are entitled to extend the lease. Is the freehold reversion owned jointly by the leaseholders? Does the lease include onerous restrictions?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in St Neots