Transferring your flat

Remember that whereas you may 'own' the lease for a particular unit within Augustus Court, you do so only with the consent of the Augustus Court freeholder, Abbotdeal, subject to your compliance with the terms, conditions & covenants within the legal lease agreement that you have with Abbotdeal.

You are required under those covenants to keep Abbotdeal and Termstake, and so therefore your fellow shared freeholders, informed of changes relating to your unit that you wish to make before you commit to them taking place.

As a legal document, your lease can be transferred to another person without a financial element - so not technically a sale. You may wish to transfer to or share ownership with another member of your family, for example. By doing this you are changing who holds that temporary right (the leasehold) to occupy that part of the building defined within the lease for the remaining part of its agreement, i.e. what is left from the original 125 years. The decision to transfer is yours but there are conditions with which you must comply in order to proceed. The transfer of ownership involves not only the parties affected (former owner and new owner(s)) but also the freeholder and national & official agencies.

This change in conditions of ownership of the lease includes the cancellation/reissue of the associated share in Abbotdeal and the equivalent share in Termstake. No transfer will be considered or recorded as complete unless all the items have been processed as required. If changing the ownership of your lease then the following administrative & legal processes must be followed in all cases.

When you have made the decision to transfer, you are required to notify Abbotdeal of this in written form. This is one of the covenants in your lease agreement. Part of the legal process of transferring a lease from one party to another involves the landlord (Abbotdeal) issuing a Licence to Assign authorising the transfer to proceed. Abbotdeal will not withhold issuing the Licence on unreasonable grounds but your solicitor must ensure that the Licence is obtained.

No licence, no authorisation, no transfer.

The Notification needs to be sent to the Managing Agent (see Contact page) and will only be accepted if it has been sent by the leaseholder registered with Abbotdeal for the flat. The only exception to this is in the case of the death of a leaseholder when the Notification will be accepted from an authorised family member or solicitor. This Notification must be in written form - either in the form of a letter or by email (managing.agent@augustus-court.co.uk).

As part of the Notification please ensure the following details are included:

Name of the current owner/leaseholder
Address of the unit to be sold
Name, address, telephone no. and DX address of your appointed solicitor
Name, current contact details of intended new owner(s)

The Managing Agent will supply you with the details of Abbotdeal's solicitor with whom your own solicitor will need to liaise throughout the transfer process. He can also advise on the processes that need to be followed, any outstanding charges or fees that may require settlement before completion and the minimum costs you will incur for the transaction.

Your solicitor must ensure that all the conditions of the lease are respected and that the whole transaction is packaged with the transfer of the associated share in Abbotdeal and the associated share in Termstake. The items cannot be transferred separately or independently of each other. If your two Termstake and Abbotdeal shares are not surrendered in the required manner then the counterpart lease held by Abbotdeal's solicitors will not be reassigned to the new owner(s) and you will remain responsible financially for all subsequent rent notices and charges until that has been done.