63 Year lease on property purchase - No advice or warning from Solicitor

[BrightSpark606]

Hi Everyone,
I really hope someone can help.

Basically in 2003 I purchased a leasehold flat. I was unaware of the implications of the leasehold and stupidly trusted my solicitor.

The lease at the time had 63 years remaining and all I received was a fax letter from the freeholder (via the solicitor) stating that it would cost £2500 to extend the lease at that time (which I now know could of only been done by the previous owner (due to the 2 year rule). With the faxed letter there was no advice offered by my solicitor at all. I didn't understand it so I had no idea I could of negotiated with the owner to get the lease extended.

Also the ground rent bills only ever came to the previous owner and never to me until I contacted the freeholder, she explained she had never been informed of the sale. At the same time I asked how much it was to extend the lease and she said £11,000. (this was in about 2008.)

So my question is, do I have a case with regards to the solicitor misadvising (or not advising) at the time of the sale?

(I have more details I just didn't want to go overboard!

[warwick65]

Re: 63 Year lease on property purchase - No advice or warning from Solicitor

Hi

You might do but just so you are aware the cost of extending a lease is a negotiation.
As an example when my Oh extended the first offer was a figure with ground rent doubling every ten years and extending the lease to 99 years. We got the statutory +90years and peppercorn rent for less than the first offer.

I imagine it would now be quite expensive to extend the lease.
The problem you might have is proving what was or wasn't said by your solicitor.
[MENTION=49370]Kati[/MENTION] [MENTION=6]Amethyst[/MENTION] [MENTION=87380]Diana M[/MENTION]. (who knows about leasehold)

Who are the experts?

[BrightSpark606]

Re: 63 Year lease on property purchase - No advice or warning from Solicitor

Thank you for your response warwick65,
I understand the cost will be huge and I have some options (buy the freehold with the other leaseholders or sell to a cash buyer) but my concern is the fact I would have sorted this out at the time of purchase had the solicitor talked me through it. I have all of the paperwork and there is no mention of the lease being under the advised amount of years (80) also shouldn't the mortgage company of said something? I'm sure they don't lend on leases that are less than 75 years or so (give or take) then there is the issue with the freeholder being unaware of the sale.

This all seems like I had a bad deal with the solicitor, I was also made aware long after the sale that other offers had fallen through because of the lease, the other solicitors advised against the sale.

I just feel if I was given the correct advice at the time of the sale then I would have a lovely long lease now and none of this stress. I would be happy to take this further with the original solicitor, but I need your thoughts

[warwick65]

Re: 63 Year lease on property purchase - No advice or warning from Solicitor

My understanding is that the limit for mortgages used to be about 60 years and have increased since the financial crash

Again buying the freehold will be expensive but once done the lease can be extended for nothing

How to deal with it is not my area but you would need to complain to the solicitors firm directly- was it part of a large firm or a sole practitioner , are they still trading?

Hopefully someone else will pop in and give you some advice

[distress]

Re: 63 Year lease on property purchase - No advice or warning from Solicitor

"you would need to complain to the solicitors firm directly- was it part of a large firm or a sole practitioner , are they still trading?"hat if she is a sole

Sorry for hijack the threads, but I have similar issue with my ex-lawyer who was acting for me in a lease purchase, although commercial lease. What matter if the lawyer was sole practitioner? Still trading or not?

You went to meet a lawyer in an office in a building with many other lawyers, office workers not in a shackle in the back garden, or in a shabby industrial estate. You don't deal with lawyer everyday until something like this happens... How do you know beforehand to use this and not using that lawyer

I guess the worst when youu ask that, but could you explain in clarity the implication of what if that was a sole practitioner? and if still trading or not any more? The only thing I know is he/she was been recommended to me through a respectable Lawyer organisation, not that we search for lawyer randomly from the back of a third world's news paper issue. Is there any other backup or support for us?

[warwick65]

Re: 63 Year lease on property purchase - No advice or warning from Solicitor

The reason I asked if the solicitor was a sole practitioner and/or still trading was because if you were to follow a complaint the route would be different

Larger firms have managing partners who deal with complaints and if a lawyers firm has ceased trading you can not complain to them.

I do not wish to get involved with complaining about lawyers but if you google the question "how to complain about a solicitor" once you get past all the ads you will see links to the SRA and Law Society

Remember that lawyers are only human and make mistakes and I am a great believer in using the set routes laid out in complaints policy