Flat and Apartment Leases A Practitioners Guide

Course Overview

Leasehold conveyancing presents a greater level of risk for conveyancers because there are a number of issues that will always be outside the personal control of individual leaseholders. As mortgage finance is rationed and property prices continue to rise, it is likely that the sale and purchase of flats will remain a key growth area.  

Experienced property lecturer Stephen Desmond will provide viewers with an in depth look at flat and apartment leases from a practitioner’s perspective and will offer practical guidance which will be invaluable for practitioners who currently advise clients in this area of conveyancing practice or who would like to do so in the future.

Part 1 will consider the following topics:

• Buying off-plan – Risks faced by buyer – Inadequate plans – Consumer Code for Home Builders – Revocation of mortgage offer – Recent case law
• Buying a flat in a building converted into no more than 4 flats – management problems, absent joint freeholder, Lender’s Handbook 
• Repairing covenants and their interrelationship with how the demise and common parts are defined

Part 2 will consider the following topics:

• Sheltered housing leases: exit fees, services withdrawn or not listed in lease
• Selling an existing lease – Contract provisions, dealing with apportionments, completion statements, notices and retentions, arrears of ground rent or service charge
• Reporting on replies to enquiries by seller and management company
• Management companies: No interest in the building, concurrent leases, enforcement of covenants, fallback covenants  – Dissolved companies

Part 3 will consider the following topics:

• Rights to park: by way of demise or grant?
• Excluding implied rights
• Delays in issue of certificate required by Land Registry restriction
• Deeds of variation or indemnity insurance?