Lawyers for Registering Lease Extensions

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Description

A Lease is the agreement between a property owner (“landlord”) and property user (“tenant”) about the user’s occupancy of the landlord’s premises. Lease documents are usually long and complex – and give rise to related legal issues we have experience of handling. Leases are invariably in the form of a Deed – a Deed is a special type of agreement in English and Welsh law that is entered into with particular formalities, and can be enforced in a slightly different manner to “ordinary” contracts. Changes to a lease are invariably also entered into as deeds.

It is not possible in English and Welsh law to vary a lease by adding to it any area that was not originally included, nor to make the length of the lease any longer than it was originally – such arrangements take effect in English and Welsh law as a surrender of the existing lease, and its regrant on the varied terms. The technical “crunch” is that the new lease will have to have a new registered title number assigned to it. In turn, that will mean any mortgage on your current title will have to be ‘ported’ from your current title to your new title; that’s a fiddly job that only conveyancers of lender panels can really do.

Included in this service is communicating with the landlord, tenant, and any lender about the deeds agreed, then drafting and finalising those deeds. We do not actually negotiate the terms – we expect those to have been agreed in principle before our involvement. In taking instructions we are going to be particularly interested in whether:

1.    your title is registered

2.    you have a mortgage

3.    the level of co-operation between those involved, e.g. has the price been agreed between you already? Is the Landlord expecting the tenant to provide their legal work, or will they expect you to pay their lawyers (and, if so, how much)? Is there a management company?

Once the deeds are prepared, we will register them at the Land Registry.

How long will it take?

We don’t generally do anything for new clients until our process of client retention has concluded – this involves agreeing the scope of what we are doing for the price (our terms are below), setting-up our client record (that includes ID checks), and producing the bill (payment in advance is required for all new clients).

This job is a complex multi-stage process, with numerous third-party dependencies. Although only a few hours’ total legal work is normally required, the dependencies mean that these engagements frequently take several months to complete, ready for registration.

The time HM Land Registry take to process such a registration varies greatly, depending on how busy they are. Some applications are processed very quickly, up to “next day”; however, most applications appear to languish awaiting HM Land Registry attention; in 2021 many applications were taking about 6 months to be registered – and some types of application can take even longer than that, unfortunately. However, once submitted HM Land Registry process applications on any title in order of submission – so their delay ought not to affect the priority of your application relative to other matters on that title.

Money Matters

Your supplier is SRA-regulated Mounteney Solicitors Ltd, that charges VAT some customers may be able to reclaim

No mortgage we charge: £700 + VAT = £840

With mortgage we charge: £1100 + VAT = £1320

Plus, the Land Registry fee (£40)

There is more about our fees on our website here

If you have any questions or require any further information, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us.