Surveys & Valuations

The firm has expertise in leasehold enfranchisement work. With a large database of flats via our service charge management portfolio, we have almost unrivalled access to the poorly-understood figures and principles, including "relativity" as well as the term and reversionary yields.

We have seen steadily-increasing activity in this rather specialist discipline. We're one of the few firms in Yorkshire who are able to provide sound and robust valuation advice to both leaseholders and freeholders.

Simply, if you own a leasehold flat or house, its value starts to diminish when the lease has 80 years or less unexpired (because of the principle of "marriage value"); it diminishes further at 70 years unexpired because a significant proportion of Council of Mortgage Lenders members no longer regard it as a suitable lending security; when it gets to 60 years, the diminution increases exponentially.

Parliament has given the vast majority of leaseholders the statutory right to extend their leases (and eradicate the ground rent) in return for a premium. Calculating this premium is an area where Adair Paxton can help.

If 50% or more of the leaseholders in a block of flats cooperate, they have the right to acquire the freehold, again subject to paying the appropriate premium to the freeholder.

Our services are available to leaseholders as well as freeholders, to individuals, to groups of leaseholders acting collaboratively in both purchase of the freehold and lease extensions. We can often provide initial advice without charge, usually to groups of leaseholders and often at the AGM.

Bruce Collinson heads this department and William Marshall can also deal with initial queries.

Most surveyors (and nearly all Judges) try very hard to avoid getting involved in boundary disputes. We take the view that everyone's entitled to proper advice and representation; Bruce Collinson FRICS acted on his first boundary dispute in 1975 and he's been doing them ever since.

As well as being a Member of the RICS President's Neighbour Dispute Mediation Scheme, he is an RICS Accredited Mediator and a highly experienced practitioner and Expert Witness in boundary and neighbour matters, including rights of way, easements etc. Combined with his 40 years' experience as a practical Chartered Surveyor and latterly as an Expert Witness, he undertakes numerous instructions, some Court-appointed, to resolve boundary and neighbour matters, from initial informal advice right through to implementation of Consent Orders and Mediation.

Without doubt, the first rule of an impending neighbour or boundary dispute must always be, sort it out with your neighbours, if necessary over a bottle of decent red, at any reasonable cost. This is invariably Bruce's opening gambit; boundary disputes haemorrhage fees, a point reiterated in most of the recent landmark High Court judgements.

If however you're up against the classic profile of a boundary litigant, late middle-age, reads the Mail or Express, Princess Diana memorabilia etc then Plan B must be to get into mediation at the earliest opportunity. Typically, a mediation of an average boundary or neighbour matter is going to end up costing both sides c. £1,000. This is a fraction of the likely costs if the matter gets anywhere near any sort of trial. Even if it does, latterly the Courts are inclined to tell the parties to go away and attempt mediation and in our experience it's a very unusual dispute that cannot be resolved that way (we currently have 100% success rate).

In the unfortunate event that it has to progress, we can supervise the production of the hyper-accurate plans which, for example, the Land Registry now require in order to make a Determined Boundary Application and we can access the sort of good aerial photographs which are sometimes conclusive in placing old physical features.

In summary, we have the experience, the expertise, and the sheer bottle to undertake this work.

Bruce Collinson has experience in sale and promotion of development sites for both residential and commercial use. In the last few years we have sold sites in Chichester, Norfolk, Cumbria, Aberdeen and Nottinghamshire, as well as numerous sites in Yorkshire.

Although we are not LPA Receivers, we have considerable experience in discharging instructions for them.

In the last two or three years we have taken on a number of portfolios and properties which were subject to LPA Receivership. Essentially, particularly for diverse portfolios and mixed-use properties, we have all of the resources and skills in-house to manage these to best effect until the assets can be realised.

Therefore, we don't compete with LPA Receivers but we are sufficiently experienced and pragmatic in property management, both residential and commercial, that we can usually find solutions where larger, more corporate practices may not be able to do so cost-effectively.

We have access to tradesmen, suppliers, specialists, and a full suite of service providers to be able to achieve the optimum balance between maximising return and minimising outlay.