If you're thinking of buying, or have just bought, a property at Queenswood Gardens — or are a solicitor acting on behalf of a new or prospective buyer — then the information on this page is just what you need.

Wanstead has recently won accolades as a great place to live.  The London Evening Standard ranks it as amongst the top ten places to live in London, and Metro gives it high marks, too.  The Sunday Times lists Wanstead as one of the best places to live in the United Kingdom.  A couple of years ago, Wanstead High Street was voted as one of the ten best in London for its mix of retail shops, restaurants and services.

Queenswood Gardens sits at the northern tip of Wanstead Flats — the southern-most part of Epping Forest and, at 330 acres, one of the largest freely-accessible open spaces in London.  It's an ideal spot to live, for its quality of life and as a commuter's base.  Within walking distance, there are a tennis club, a bowls club, a cricket club and a golf course, plus plenty of sporting facilities on the Flats themselves, depending on what games are in season.  Wanstead Flats, Epping Forest and the local Wanstead Park all offer plenty of opportunities for getting a little outdoor exercise, whether you prefer walking or running.

A brisk walk, or a short bus-ride, away
from Queenswood Gardens, you'll find Wanstead Village, with a range of shops including three bakers, a butcher (a branch of the Ginger Pig chain), a greengrocer, a Co-op supermarket, a Tesco Express, an M&S Simply Food store, a wet fish shop, a Post Office, cafés, delicatessens, newsagents, chemists, hairdressers, convenience stores, a hardware store, Costa Coffee and other coffee shops, Majestic Wines, and a wide range of restaurants (including British, Chinese, French brasserie, Indian, Italian, Japanese sushi, Mediterranean, Spanish tapas and Turkish), and take-away shops.  Plus banks, building societies, solicitors and estate agents who can provide all that you'd need when either buying or selling at Queenswood Gardens.  In the wider area we have the full range of supermarkets and numerous shopping centres.  To the west you'll find the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the Westfield Shopping Mall at Stratford, which is a few stops away on the Central line, a short bus-ride or about ten minutes by car.

Commuters are well served, too.  Buses that pass Queenswood Gardens (we have stops immediately outside the development) run to local overground and underground stations to the south, north and west, offering fast access to central London via Wanstead, Leytonstone, Manor Park and Stratford stations on the Central and Jubilee underground lines, Docklands Light Railway and National Express East Anglia trains.  The W19 bus runs through our local hospital at Whipps Cross.

Queenswood Gardens itself is noted locally for its pleasant environment, not least because of the gardens, which receive lots of TLC from our gardening team.  Both outdoor and indoor maintenance are kept to a high standard and as a rule lessees and residents take a great pride in looking after the estate.  As it says on our newsletters: "We're a small community - let's be proud of it" — and we are.

All flats at Queenswood Gardens are leasehold — that is, the freehold is owned by Queenswood Gardens Ltd ("QGL") and lessees (
"owners") have a long lease on their individual properties.  Sometimes flats are advertised for sale "with a share of the freehold" this is misleading, as no flats come with a direct share in the freehold, but some flats do come with a share in QGL, if they have been granted a 90-year or 900-year lease extension.  Originally, all flats had a 99-year lease from 1971, the year the estate was built.  The original leases expire in 2070.  Founder shareholders in Queenswood Gardens Ltd, who put up the funds to establish QGL and to buy the freehold in 2002, were in return granted 900-year lease extensions.  A number of other lessees have since been granted 90-year extensions on payment of an agreed premium.  Whatever the length of the lease for a particular property, the terms of the lease are the same for everybody (although those with lease extensions do not have to pay an annual ground rent), and all lessees are expected to comply with them.  The lease is a complex legal document, which isn't really suitable to reproduce in full here, but you can see the main lessees' covenants — that is, what a lessee commits to do on becoming a leaseholder — here.  If, having read those covenants, you feel that you wouldn't be able to commit to them all, then you should ask yourself if moving to Queenswood Gardens is right for you, as we do expect all lessees to abide by them.

The lease requires that each lessee must have a share in Queenswood Management Association Ltd ("QMAL"), and that an outgoing lessee must arrange for their share to be transferred to the incoming lessee.  In practice, this is generally left to the new lessee to deal with.  To transfer the share, you will need to provide QMAL with the following:

 • the previous lessee's certificate* for their share in QMAL (it must be the original** — a photocopy will not be
    accepted);

 • a completed stock transfer form in the new lessee's favour, signed by the old shareholder;
 • a copy of the new lessee's deed of covenant;
 • a copy of the receipted notice of transfer or notice of assignment***;
 • a cheque for the QMAL administration fee of £75.00, made out to "Hull & Company (Queenswood) Client Account".

You can download a stock transfer form, and examples of how to complete the form for both QMAL and QGL, here — following changes in the 2008 budget, you no longer need to get it stamped by HM Revenue & Customs before submitting it to QMAL/QGL - but you do need to complete Certificate 1 on the second page of the form.  If you haven't already completed a deed of covenant, you can download a specimen copy of our preferred format here.  
Send the complete set of documents plus your cheque to Griff Griffith, Company Secretary, Queenswood Management Association Ltd, 62 Crown Street, Brentwood, Essex CM14 4BJ.  We recommend that you send documents by registered letter (or other "signed-for" service).

*  All share certificates then in existence were cancelled in accordance with a resolution passed at the company's 2004 Annual General Meeting, and new certificates were issued to all shareholders at that time.  Old, pre-October 2004, certificates are not valid for the purposes of transferring a share. 

**  Missing or lost certificates can be dealt with by means of a letter of indemnity from either the outgoing lessee or the incoming lessee; the format for the letter is determined by QMAL - there is a £25 administration fee for preparing and dealing with letters of indemnity. 
Please contact QMAL to discuss requirements if the certificate is lost or missing.
 

*** Notices of transfer, notices of assignment, notices of mortgage and other similar notices should  be sent to QGL's solicitors for receipting, in accordance with the terms of the lease.  If there is a mortgage on the property, then details of the mortgage company, their contact details including mailing address, and the mortgage account number should be included in the notice.  QGL's solicitors are Taylor Rose MW, 6 Old London Road, Kingston, Surrey KT2 6QF; all correspondence should be marked for attention of Anandakrishnan Nair (Tel: 020 3551 8299, email: anandakrishnan.nair@taylor-rose.co.uk).  Their fee for dealing with notices, etc., is £60 plus VAT, which includes the £3 notice registration fee mentioned in the lease.


If the outgoing lessee is also a shareholder in QGL (which is normally the case if the lease has been extended by either 900 years or 90 years), then that share also needs to be transferred to the new lessee.  To transfer the share, you will need to provide the following to QGL:

 • the previous lessee's certificate for their share in QGL (it must be the original**** — a photocopy will not be
    accepted);

 • a completed stock transfer form in the new lessee's favour, signed by the old shareholder;
 • a cheque for the QGL administration fee of £75.00, made out to "Queenswood Gardens Ltd".

Send the complete set of documents plus your cheque to Griff Griffith, Company Secretary, Queenswood Gardens Ltd, 62 Crown Street, Brentwood, Essex CM14 4BJ. 
We recommend that you send documents by registered letter (or other "signed-for" service).

**** Missing or lost certificates can be dealt with by means of a letter of indemnity from either the outgoing lessee or the incoming lessee; the format for the letter is determined by QGL - there is a £25 administration fee for preparing and dealing with letters of indemnity.  Please contact QGL to discuss requirements if the certificate is lost or missing.

Note that in cases where there is a known material breach of the lease — for example, a failure to lay fitted carpets where required — neither QMAL nor QGL will authorise the transfer of a share until the breach is rectified.  Incoming lessees are responsible for establishing if there are any breaches of the lease — ideally before they commit to buying a property.


 

Make a free website with Yola