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Buyers should be told the lease term , ground rent (including review clauses) and service charge before making an offer but I wonder how many people would understand their significance. From looking at valuations even surveyors give poor advice on lease terms and ground rents.
The government could help by making more planning permissions, planning agreements, building regulations approvals and completion certificates available on-line. At the moment councils vary too much in what they provide, and most records do not go back far enough. Some of the fees for documents not available on-line are extortionate.
Also sort out the Land Registry- lost documents used to be rare but now we are told almost every month that some document cannot be located.
The main delays we see are with leaseholds, in particular defective leases, short leases, high ground rents and incomplete management information. I wish the Ministry would devote time to resolving those issues rather than bringing back a form of HIP.