The right to manage and collective freehold acquisition
As members of the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP), Ashley Wilson Solicitors are experts in collective enfranchisement – compelling your freeholder to sell the freehold of your property to you, the Leaseholder.
Understanding the technicalities of the legislation will provide you with the best advice to achieve your objectives. We work closely with your instructed valuation company to ensure that you achieve the very best result from a financial perspective and support you through the process to ensure a smooth transition.
Our expert team of solicitors can provide you with advice around whether the extent of the property you are entitled to acquire and all the information you need to help you start a claim to buy your freehold and undertake all legal and compliance actions on your behalf.
The “right to manage” is a useful tool in the event that you, like many others, are experiencing poor management of their building or paying high services charges and management fees and receiving little or no benefit.
By exercising your right to take over the management of your building you will take control and ensure that your services charges are reasonable and you benefit from the money which you are spending.
To acquire the right to manage you do not have to prove poor management by the Landlord. There are very little grounds for your Landlord to resist the claim. The process is relatively simple & quick. The Landlord’s consent is not required. No court order is necessary. A capital payment is not payable to the Landlord.
For comprehensive guidance on the right to manage please see our Right to Manage Guide within the document downloads section of this page.
The main disadvantage of exercising the right to manage as an alternative to freehold or collective enfranchisement (where you acquire the freehold) is that each flat owner's lease continues to become shorter and will need to be extended at some point (at capital cost to that flat owner). Also ground rent continues to be payable.
Landlords beware; commercial leaseholders may get round restrictions in their lease to achieve residential use which brings the potential right to forcibly acquire the freehold (enfranchisement).
In 2018, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid announced a “crackdown on unfairly sold practices” that would include setting ground rents on new long leases to zero and working with The Law Commission to make the process of purchasing a freehold or extending a lease of a flat “much easier, faster and cheaper”.
The property investment landscape has been facing increasing challenges in recent years, and the proposed Renters (Reform) Bill — currently progressing through Parliament — could represent a significant turning point for private landlords.
