Administrator Refuses to Issue Landlord Certificate to enable flat sale

skeet79

Hi all - on a desperate plea for help...

I've been stuck with a flat for fifteen years - for various reasons, most latterly cladding traumas. This is now resolved and we have sign-off, and sold the flat inside a week. WOO.

However we're now having trouble as the buyer has asked for a Landlord's certificate, we have asked for this and (having waited to the day for the four weeks to expire) I have been told that the landlord will not issue it because there are no 'qualifying works'.

My understanding is they HAVE to provide a certificate or accept liability for costs of works? The complexity is that the original landlord has gone into administration, and the administrator are handling this. I can understand why they wouldn't want to get involved ... but I can't find any exemption in the legislation to allow them to do this.

Any help very much appreciated. My sale is about to fall through and I'm rupturing £1000 a month...

Brie

Are you talking about a leasehold certificate?  LPE1 ? 

We couldn't get one from the freeholder of MiL's flat when we were trying to sell it a few years back simply because they (somehow) had bought the freehold a couple of years earlier without getting one from the previous owner.  Eventually we got the form ourselves and filled it out (as inlaws had lived there for 30+ years and we knew everything about the place) and paid the freeholder's solicitor about £600 to sign it on their behalf.   It meant the sale could proceed and saved us a lot of heartache.

skeet79

It's this one: https://www.teeslaw.com/insights/building-safety-act-leaseholder-and-landlord-certificates/

eddddy

skeet79 said:

However we're now having trouble as the buyer has asked for a Landlord's certificate, we have asked for this and (having waited to the day for the four weeks to expire) I have been told that the landlord will not issue it because there are no 'qualifying works'.

I'm no expert on this, but my understanding is that if the Landlord doesn't provide a certificate within 4 weeks of your request - the Landlord cannot later charge you for any safety remediation work.

But in any case.... the Landlord is telling you that no safety remediation work is required. 


So isn't that a 'double guarantee' that nothing should be added to future service charges?

• Guarantee 1 - no Landlord certificate issued within 4 weeks
• Guarantee 2 - Landlord has said there is no qualifying safety remediation work required

Is the buyer unhappy with the situation? And/or do you see a problem?

skeet79

I'm hoping that's the case! The buyers solicitor seems adamant that we should have one - and I'm concerned that's where it'll go wrong... 

But thank you, reassuring that you read it like this too