The sale that fails in week fourteen

A freehold sale usually collapses because of money or the chain. A leasehold sale more often collapses because of paperwork that nobody could produce quickly enough, at a point where the buyer has already spent several hundred pounds and lost patience.

That distinction matters, because the paperwork is controllable and the chain is not.

The management pack

The single largest controllable delay in a leasehold sale is the time taken to return the leasehold enquiries pack.

The seller's solicitor requests it, typically as an LPE1, and then waits. There is no statutory turnaround period in England and Wales. Industry practice ranges from a few days to several weeks, and a slow return at the wrong moment can push a transaction past the point where a buyer's mortgage offer expires.

The cost of the pack is a separate irritation, but it is the timing that kills sales. A fortnight's delay in July is an inconvenience. The same fortnight in late November, with a buyer trying to complete before Christmas and a mortgage offer running down, is frequently terminal.

For managing agents, the practical question is not whether the pack is produced accurately. It is whether anyone in the office knows how long it currently takes, measured rather than estimated. Few blocks track it. Those that do tend to find the figure higher than expected.

Arrears the seller has forgotten

Service charge arrears disclosed at enquiry stage cause disproportionate damage, because they arrive as a surprise.

A seller who has disputed a charge, or who assumed a credit had been applied, may genuinely believe the account is clear. The buyer's solicitor sees an unexplained balance and a potential forfeiture risk, and the transaction stalls while it is reconstructed.

Most of this is avoidable by sending a clear statement at the point the flat is marketed rather than at the point it is sold. A seller who sees the figure in week one has time to query or settle it. A seller who sees it in week fourteen has a problem and a frustrated buyer.

Insurance, and the reinstatement figure

Buildings insurance documentation is routinely requested and routinely produces questions.

Two recurring issues: a reinstatement valuation old enough that a surveyor flags underinsurance, and a policy schedule that does not obviously name the leaseholders as interested parties. Neither is usually a real defect. Both generate correspondence, and correspondence generates weeks.

Where a block has had a claim, the loss history will be asked for. Having it ready, with a short factual note on what happened and whether works are complete, shortens the exchange considerably.

Building safety paperwork

For buildings in scope of the Building Safety Act regime, buyers' lenders will ask for documentation, and the answers are not always simple to assemble at short notice.

The practical risk is less about whether a building is compliant and more about whether the evidence is to hand. A managing agent who can produce the relevant safety case material, remediation position and any external wall assessment within a few days is materially improving the saleability of every flat in the block. One who cannot is, in effect, lengthening every transaction by the time it takes to find them.

This is worth raising at board level rather than treating as a conveyancing problem, because the cost of assembling the file once is far lower than the cost of assembling it repeatedly under pressure.

Major works and the Section 20 question

A live or imminent Section 20 consultation is one of the few genuinely substantive reasons a leasehold sale falls through, as opposed to merely slows down.

A buyer learning that a significant contribution is likely will either renegotiate or withdraw. Neither outcome is improved by the information arriving late.

There is a reasonable argument that RMC directors should be more forthcoming here than strict disclosure obligations require. A buyer told at the outset that works are anticipated, with an honest range, will often proceed. The same buyer told in week fourteen rarely does, and the flat returns to the market with a history.

Lease length, and the cliff edges

Lease length affects saleability in steps rather than smoothly.

Lenders become noticeably more cautious as the unexpired term shortens, and many will decline where the remaining term falls below a threshold set against the mortgage term. Separately, the point at which marriage value has historically applied to an extension premium has long been a reason to act before a lease falls below eighty years.

The statutory position here is changing. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 alters how premiums are calculated, but not all of its provisions are in force and the detail continues to develop. Anyone advising on timing should check the current position rather than rely on the position as it stood when the Act received Royal Assent.

What has not changed is the value of leaseholders knowing their unexpired term before they decide to sell, rather than discovering it from a buyer's valuer.

What can be done in advance

Most of the above is a documentation problem wearing the costume of a market problem. A block that has the following assembled and current will transact faster than a comparable block that does not:

• A current buildings insurance schedule and reinstatement valuation

• A clear service charge account statement per unit, issued on request within days

• The last three years of accounts

• Any Section 20 notices, with a plain-English note on status

• Fire risk assessment and, where applicable, building safety documentation

• A record of the typical LPE1 turnaround, monitored rather than assumed

None of this requires a change in the law or a difficult conversation with leaseholders. It requires someone to treat saleability as a standing management objective rather than as something that becomes relevant only when a flat goes on the market.

The value of doing so accrues to every leaseholder in the building, including the ones with no intention of moving. A block with a reputation among local agents for straightforward transactions is a block where flats sell, and where they sell at the price the market thinks they are worth rather than at a discount for the aggravation.

Dan Green is the founder of Springbok Properties, which buys residential property directly from homeowners across the UK.