RESIDENTIALlettings
Keep your sales on the rails asks how agents
can speed up leasehold sales. Tony Essien CEO of LEASE heads a team of lawyers with answers.
likelihood pay for themselves by helping the sale to go through more easily. Indeed, not having this information to hand really ought to set alarm bells ringing in prospective buyers’ heads. Why risk derailing a sale? Documents and information that are
required for all types of property, leasehold and freehold: an index of the contents of the HIP a Property Information Questionnaire the sale statement the standard property searches an Energy Performance Certificate
In addition, other documents and T
his year the Leasehold Advisory service (LEASE) will deal with some 40,000 enquiries and its website will host half a million visitors or more. The majority of these
enquiries relate to the service charges and the management of blocks of flats, and perhaps much of the leaseholders’ confusion could be avoided if buyers really understood what they were committing to when signing a lease. A good start is to go the extra mile and
encourage vendors to include as much information as possible in the HIP, says Tony Essien, Chief Executive at The Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE), who leads a 15-strong team of specialist lawyers funded by Government to provide free initial legal advice to leaseholders, landlords, professional advisers, managers and others on the law affecting residential
54 JUNE 2010 PROPERTYdrum
leasehold and commonhold. PROPERTYdrum spoke to Tony Essien
about what must be included and what can be included to help a sale go smoothly and avoid nasty hidden surprises between offer and completion.
What Must a hIP for a leasehold flat contaIn? The law sets out a list of required documents which must be included and of optional authorised information which can be included. The authorised documents provide extra information that might be useful to a purchaser and so help in selling the flat. If flat-owners have kept all communications from the landlord or the managing agent relating to the flat, most of this information will be to hand anyway, so it makes sense to include them. Even though they may add to the apparent costs of preparing the HIP, they will, in all
information that are required for leasehold properties are: a copy of the lease. If necessary, a copy can be obtained from the Land Registry an extended Property Information Questionnaire including mandatory questions on leasehold matters. It should be possible to answer all of these without making enquiries of the landlord or managing agent.
What else MaY a hIP for a leasehold flat contaIn? The authorised documents for leasehold properties that can be added will often speed up a buyer’s decision and will certainly speed up subsequent conveyancing are: the name and address of the lessor (the landlord) and of any managing agent, which can be found on any demand for service charges and ground rent a copy of any special management regulations relating to the building or estate statements or summaries of the annual service charge accounts for the past three years all requests for payment of ground rent, service charges and insurance for the past 12 months
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76