My wife and I may need to sub-let our Stowmarket ground floor flat for a while due to a new job. We instructed a Stowmarket conveyancing practice in 2001 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to seek any guidance as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

Your lease dictates relations between the landlord and you the flat owner; specifically, it will indicate if subletting is banned, or permitted but only subject to certain conditions. The rule is that if the lease contains no specific ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. Most leases in Stowmarket do not contain strict prohibition on subletting – such a provision would adversely affect the market value the property. In most cases there is a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly sending a copy of the tenancy agreement.

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Stowmarket. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

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 work for a busy estate agency in Stowmarket where we see a number of flat sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Stowmarket conveyancing firms. Can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities 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 kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser 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 at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

All being well we will complete the sale of our £450000 apartment in Stowmarket in just under a week. The managing agents has quoted £300 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Stowmarket?

Stowmarket conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes usually requires the buyer’s lawyer submitting enquiries for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is under no legal obligation to respond to such questions most will be willing to assist. They are entitled invoice a reasonable charge for responding to questions or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the information that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some situations it exceeds £800. The management information fee levied by the landlord must be sent together with a summary of rights and obligations in relation to administration fees, otherwise the charge is not strictly payable. Reality however dictates that one has little choice but to pay whatever is demanded if you want to exchange contracts with the buyer.

What are the common deficiencies that you witness in leases for Stowmarket properties?

Leasehold conveyancing in Stowmarket is not unique. All leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain provisions are not included. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements of the building
• A duty to insure the building
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

You could have a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Barclays , The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Barclays Direct all have express requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to withdraw.

I invested in buying a 1 bedroom flat in Stowmarket, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Equivalent flats in Stowmarket with an extended lease are worth £200,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 per annum. The lease comes to an end on 21st October 2093

With just 67 years left to run we estimate the price of your lease extension to be between £12,400 and £14,200 plus costs.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed investigations. You should not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be additional concerns that need to be taken into account and clearly you 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 Stowmarket