Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years remaining on my flat in Stapleton. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What should I do?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be extended by the Court. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to track down the freeholder. In some cases a specialist may be useful to conduct investigations and prepare a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Stapleton.

I have just appointed agents to market my basement flat in Stapleton.Conveyancing solicitors are to be appointed soon but I have just had a half-yearly maintenance charge invoice – Do I pay up?

It best that you pay the invoice as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer unless the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

Back In 2009, I bought a leasehold house in Stapleton. Conveyancing and Barnsley Building Society mortgage are in place. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1996. The conveyancing practitioner in Stapleton who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is contact HMLR to be sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. There is no need to incur the fees of a Stapleton conveyancing solicitor to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

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

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. A critical element 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 work for a long established estate agency in Stapleton where we see a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Stapleton conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to 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 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. This means that the buyer need not have 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 disposal of the property.

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 purchaser.

I purchased a 2 bed flat in Stapleton, conveyancing having been completed 9 years ago. How much will my lease extension cost? Comparable flats in Stapleton with a long lease are worth £229,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 charged once a year. The lease ends on 21st October 2093

With only 72 years remaining on your lease we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £10,500 and £12,000 as well as professional fees.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs without more comprehensive investigations. Do not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Stapleton