Jane (my partner) and I may need to rent out our Stanley 1st floor flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Stanley conveyancing practice in 2003 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to seek any advice as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your last Stanley conveyancing lawyer is no longer available you can review your lease to see if it allows you to sublet the property. The accepted inference is that if the lease is non-specific, subletting is allowed. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you must obtain permission from your landlord or some other party before subletting. The net result is that you cannot sublet in the absence of first obtaining permission. Such consent should not be unreasonably refused ore delayed. If the lease prohibits you from subletting the property you should ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

I am a negotiator for a reputable estate agent office in Stanley where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales put at risk due to short leases. I have received contradictory information from local Stanley conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the seller of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer can avoid having 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 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 buyer.

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

If you are instructing a solicitor for your lease extension (regardless if they are a Stanley conveyancing firm) it is essential that they be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of work. We recommend that you speak with two or three firms including non Stanley conveyancing practices prior to instructing a firm. If the firm is ALEP accredited then so much the better. Some following of questions might be of use:

• How experienced is the firm with lease extension legislation?

If they are not ALEP accredited then what is the reason?

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Stanley from the point of view of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Stanley can be reduced where you get in touch lawyers the minute you market your property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers representatives.
• The majority landlords or managing agents in Stanley levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should find out the actual amount of the charges. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most frequent reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Stanley.

In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s permission? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Stanley state that internal structural changes or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord acquiescing to such alterations. If you fail to have the paperwork in place you should not contact the landlord without contacting your solicitor before hand.

If you have had any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is an ongoing dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. 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 present the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but you should double-check by asking your solicitors. A purchaser's lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to to exchange contracts if the lease term is less than 80 years. It is therefore important at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

We expect to complete our sale of a £425000 apartment in Stanley in just under a week. The freeholder has quoted £312 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Stanley?

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

• Addressing pre-contract enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Stanley
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Stanley leasehold premises is £350. For Stanley 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 own a ground floor flat in Stanley, conveyancing having been completed in 2001. How much will my lease extension cost? Comparable properties in Stanley with a long lease are worth £249,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 charged once a year. The lease finishes on 21st October 2083

With 59 years left to run the likely cost is going to be between £25,700 and £29,600 plus legals.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure without more comprehensive due diligence. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other issues that need to be considered and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not take any other action based on this information before getting professional advice.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Stanley