Selling your home

On the Kingsmead estate, we have two deed issues people contact us about:

1. Service Charges
This relates to the old Kingsmead Land Management Company who used a company called RMG to collect service charge money and do maintenance up until 2011.
This affects all Kingsmead properties.

2. Ground Rent Charges
This implies that the Parish Council could levy rent charges against a property, and seems to impact some properties on the Kingsmead estate, but not all.

How can we help?
For issue 1, Service Charges, we can confirm to solicitors/legal representatives via email, that the deed clause regarding service charges is no longer applicable as the Parish Council assumed the ownership and management of amenity land in 2011.  The village is maintained using money from the Council Tax precept which all residents pay.
To set expectations, this suffices for some solicitors/legal representatives, especially locally, but not for all who may want a legal document for their buyer to resolve this matter.

For issue 2, Ground Rent Charges, this can present concern to a buyer and therefore their solicitor.  They will most likely require a legal document for their buyer to resolve this matter.

Legal documents
In both cases, if you need a legal document for your buyer, you will need a solicitor/legal representative to produce a ‘Deed of Variation’.
We have asked Chambers Fletcher, based in Northwich, to offer a Deed of Variation service as a standard process to make this cheaper and easier for residents, but it is absolutely a resident’s choice as to whom they use.  The legal process removes the contentious restrictions in perpetuity, meaning there will be no issue for future sales of the property.

Chambers Fletcher www.chambersfletcher.co.uk
PDF version of this article: Selling your home