Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in Victoria Park. Before I set the wheels in motion I want to be sure as to the number of years remaining on the lease.

Assuming the lease is recorded at the land registry - and 99.9% are in Victoria Park - 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.

I have just started marketing my garden apartment in Victoria Park.Conveyancing is yet to be initiated but I have just had a quarterly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should clear 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 managing agents 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. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

Back In 2007, I bought a leasehold house in Victoria Park. Conveyancing and Barclays mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the freehold. Attached was a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1992. The conveyancing solicitor in Victoria Park who acted for me is not around.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of HMLR to be sure that this person is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. There is no need to incur the fees of a Victoria Park conveyancing lawyer to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. 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 am employed by a busy estate agent office in Victoria Park where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Victoria Park conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease 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 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 needs to be completed before, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is 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 purchaser.

We expect to complete the disposal of our £ 225000 apartment in Victoria Park on Tuesday in a week. The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Victoria Park?

Victoria Park conveyancing on leasehold flats normally involves fees being invoiced by landlords agents :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Victoria Park
• 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 Victoria Park leasehold premises is £350. For Victoria Park 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 obliged to supply answers.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Victoria Park - Sample of Queries Prior to Purchasing

You should be aware if it is no more than eighty years it will have adverse implications on the marketability of the apartment. Check with your mortgage company that they are content with remaining years on the lease. A short lease 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. For most Victoria Parklease extensions you will be be obliged to have owned the residence for a couple of years before you are entitled to extend the lease. The prefered form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the tenants benefit from being in charge if their destiny and even though a managing agent is usually employed where it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent retained by the leaseholders.