Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 72 years left on my flat in Stroud. I now wish to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What should I do?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to track down the landlord. For most situations a specialist would be helpful to conduct investigations and prepare a report to be used as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Stroud.

I am hoping to complete next month on a ground floor flat in Stroud. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they will have a report out to me tomorrow. What should I be looking out for?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Stroud should include some of the following:

• Does the lease require carpeting throughout thus preventing wood flooring?

I have just started marketing my basement apartment in Stroud.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge invoice – Do I pay up?

It best that you pay the service charge 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 until 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.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two apartments in Stroud which have in the region of fifty years left on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold apartment in Stroud is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the value of the premises. The majority of purchasers and banks, leases with less than eighty years become less and less attractive. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of property with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Stroud conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I work for a busy estate agency in Stroud where we see a number of flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Stroud conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

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 buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 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.

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.

I acquired a garden flat in Stroud, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Equivalent properties in Stroud with a long lease are worth £230,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 yearly. The lease ends on 21st October 2095

You have 70 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to range between £11,400 and £13,200 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure without more comprehensive investigations. Do not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be other concerns that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Stroud