We are about to exchange contracts for a semi detached house in The Ridgeway. We have hit a snag. Our loan offer with Barnsley Building Society expires on 10/11/2025 but the vendors are putting forward a completion date of 12/11/2025. Can one extend the loan expiry date?

The person best placed to deal with your concern is your conveyancer who will assess if they corresponding with the mortgage broker, vendor’s solicitors, property agents or possibly all three taking into account the history of your conveyancing to date.

The deeds to our property are lost. The conveyancers who conducted the conveyancing in The Ridgeway 10 years ago no longer exist. What are my options?

As long as the title is registered the details of your proprietorship will be documented by HMLR under a Title Number. It is easy to execute a search at the Land Registry, find your property and secure up to date copies of the property title for less than a fiver. Where the property is Leasehold then the Land Registry will in most cases retain a file duplicate of the Registered Lease and again, a copy can be retrieved for twenty pounds.

We're first time buyers - had an offer accepted, yet the estate agent informed us that the seller will only move forward if we instruct their preferred solicitors as they need a ‘quick sale’. My instinct tells me that we should use a family conveyancer used to conveyancing in The Ridgeway

We suspect that the seller is not behind this requirement. Should the owner desire ‘a quick sale', turning down a serious buyer is not the way to achieve this. Avoid the agents and go straight to the owners and make the point that (a)you are serious buyers (b)you are excited to move forward, with mortgage lined up © you are chain free (d) you intend to proceed fast (e)however you are going to instruct your own,trusted The Ridgeway conveyancing lawyers - rather thanthose that will give their estate agent a introducer fee or achieve conveyancing figures pre-set by HQ.

I want to sublet my leasehold apartment in The Ridgeway. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask him. Is permission from the freeholder required?

Notwithstanding that your previous The Ridgeway conveyancing lawyer is no longer available you can review your lease to check if it allows you to sublet the apartment. The accepted inference is that if the lease is non-specific, subletting is permitted. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you are obliged to seek permission from your landlord or some other party prior to subletting. This means that you cannot sublet in the absence of prior permission. The consent must not not be unreasonably withheld. If your lease does not allow you to sublet you will need to ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

I own a two-bedroom flat in The Ridgeway. Given that I can not reach agreement with the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the premium due for the purchase of the freehold?

Where there is a absentee landlord or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 it is possible to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to calculate the amount due.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a The Ridgeway flat is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case affected 13 flats. The unexpired term as at the valuation date was 76 years.

I own a leasehold flat in The Ridgeway. Conveyancing was finalised in last year. I have heard that I mustn’t let the lease length get too short. What is the reasoning?

The Ridgeway residential long term leases are for a fixed period - normally ninety nine years when they are first granted. However many flats in The Ridgeway were constructed or converted 35 or more years ago and so such leases now have under 80 years left to run. This may sound like plenty of time however Banks, Building Societies and other mortgage companies generally need leases to have at least 75 years remaining to adequate security. Accordingly when you come to sell the property you will need a lease extension if you are nearing 75 years. To increase the marketability of your property you should be thinking about whether to extend your lease long before you come to sell it. There are also significant benefits to doing so before the lease reaches even eighty years as when the lease falls below 80 years the premium to be paid to extend starts to increase.