rebeccak
23-02-2006, 19:12 PM
Right - for ten years my brother has owned a one bedroom flat in the Midlands, and for about the past 4 years he has rented. About a year ago myself and my husband moved in, with the intention that we were going to do up the property and then purchase the property at a reasonable price off my brother (not too much more than his remaining mortgage price), obviously gaining us some equity and putting us on the property ladder. We paid him rent in the meantime and we have been in the process of purchasing it off him for the past 3/4 months. However, it has become very complicated. The leasehold is much shorter than expected - 60 years remaining and our solicitor is trying to get my brother to complete an initial tenant's notice first to then transfer over to me. However, we need to sell the property on in the next 2 - 3 months unexpectedly because I am now 4 months pregnant and we live in a one bed second floor flat which just isn't feasible. Therefore, obviously this concerns me. My questions are
1) Can my solicitor force me to get the initial notice before he proceeds? I know for a fact that the flat beneath has just sold with no problems with the same remaining lease and the couple have moved in. It is a very popular area and our estate agents assure us it would not be a problem and they see it a lot (the current market price is very acceptable to us anyway).
2) If my brother does get an initial notice and transfers it to us, if we do not have time to complete the process, can we transfer it on to another person if someone wishes to buy the property?
3)The current market valuation is £115000 and we pay £25 ground rent per year. We have been advised by an estate agent the property would only be worth about 5k more with the extended lease. Can anyone give me a ball park figure of how much they think this could potentially cost? We also don't really have the spare cash at the moment to be doing more solicitors stuff.
Please help - I'm pregnant and panicking and don't know the best thing to do.
1) Can my solicitor force me to get the initial notice before he proceeds? I know for a fact that the flat beneath has just sold with no problems with the same remaining lease and the couple have moved in. It is a very popular area and our estate agents assure us it would not be a problem and they see it a lot (the current market price is very acceptable to us anyway).
2) If my brother does get an initial notice and transfers it to us, if we do not have time to complete the process, can we transfer it on to another person if someone wishes to buy the property?
3)The current market valuation is £115000 and we pay £25 ground rent per year. We have been advised by an estate agent the property would only be worth about 5k more with the extended lease. Can anyone give me a ball park figure of how much they think this could potentially cost? We also don't really have the spare cash at the moment to be doing more solicitors stuff.
Please help - I'm pregnant and panicking and don't know the best thing to do.