Tag Archives: Info for leaseholders

I served a Section 42 Notice but have not received a Counter Notice. What can I do?

If you have served a Notice and not received a Counter Notice in response by the due date, then the landlord is deemed to have admitted the premium that you proposed to pay in your Notice.

You should seek expert assistance, but can probably enforce the grant of the new lease at this level.

It may become necessary to apply to court in order to do this, and as there are certain time limits for doing so it would make sense to seek specialist help on this sooner rather than later.

You will also need to be able to demonstrate to the court that the Notice was in fact ‘served’ – i.e. proof of service will be required.

How do I find out who my freeholder is?

The first thing to do is to carry out a search at the Land Registry based on the address of the property.  Help from a solicitor will enable you to do this.

The Land Registry has a website which does also have public access facilities.

In the case of unregistered land, it may be more difficult to locate the freeholder by a search of publicly held information and it may be necessary to serve an information Notice under the leasehold reform legislation.

For further assistance with this please consult a professional.

Tip: Your freeholder’s address and detail should appear on the ground rent demands as this is a legal requirement in accordance with the provision of Section 47 and 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.

I am a leaseholder and I want to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

This is a question that often comes up in practice.  If the freeholder really is missing and sufficient steps have been taken to try to find him then there is a process under which a court can accept service of a claim to an extended lease on behalf of the missing person.  The claim will then be remitted to the First Tier Tribunal for determination of the premium to be paid and the amount required will be paid into court.

The court will grant the lease on behalf of the missing person.

 It is important to realise that appropriate steps must be taken to demonstrate the freeholder is genuinely ‘missing’.  Similarly, valuation advice will need to be obtained as a report will need to be submitted to the tribunal indicating the likely price to be paid for the extension.  The tribunal has the role of acting in the place of the ‘missing’ person and will examine the valuer on the contents of his report if need be and can adjust the price to be paid.

When should I extend my lease?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question as it is initially circumstance dependent.  However, before the lease has less than 80 years remaining is a good time to extend, as it will avoid the need to pay ‘marriage value’ in the calculation of what is payable to the landlord to buy the new lease (which is a substantial part of the premium).

In other cases the lease will be harder to mortgage where it is 75 years or less, as most banks wants to see lease terms of 50 years plus the 25 year mortgage term.  This will reduce the number of people that are able to buy the property, and will eventually depress its market value. It will become something that only someone who can buy without a mortgage can purchase.

This being said, there are numerous areas where short leases abound (where the terms were only originally 65 years or similar) and these tend to be higher value properties on the great estates.  Such properties have an intrinsic value based on their location and capital.  Different considerations will apply to properties outside Prime Central London.