Specialists in Leasehold Enfranchisement
24 May 2024 saw the UK Parliament pass The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. But the actual lease enfranchisement and other reforms won’t come into effect until the Act is implemented, which may be as late as 2025 or 2026. Until then, the information about freehold purchase on this page reflects the current legal position
Keep up-to-date with the proposed changes – click here to read our Leasehold Reform Latest News
Do you own leasehold property?
If you are a residential leasehold flat owner, did you know that you have the legal right to join with other tenants to force your landlord to sell you the freehold of your block? This right is known as Lease Enfranchisement. It’s also referred to as Freehold or Collective Enfranchisement, and Freehold Purchase. And it applies to almost all of the leasehold homes in England and Wales – of which there are an estimated 4.86 million in England alone.
In buying the freehold of your block, you actually become both landlord and tenant. As a result you become able to grant yourself a new 999 year lease on your flat.
If you want to gain more control over your leasehold flat then there are two avenues open to you. Either you can join forces with other leaseholders to apply for the ‘right to manage’ the building you live in, or you can start the leasehold enfranchisement process whereby you buy the freehold.
Click here to read more about the differences between enfranchisement and the right to manage
Want to know more? Call our specialist lease enfranchisement solicitors on FREEPHONE 0800 1404544 for FREE initial phone advice – with no strings attached.
Our Specialist Leasehold Solicitors
Our experienced five strong leasehold team specialises in enfranchisement and lease extension not only locally in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset but also for leaseholders and freeholders throughout England and Wales – from our offices in Salisbury, Fordingbridge, Andover and Amesbury.
We are therefore not just the most specialist team in those three counties – but one of the leaders nationwide, offering City quality advice on enfranchisement – at local prices. Don’t just take our word for it.
Although there are 10,000 law firms in England and Wales:
1. We are the sole partners of The HomeOwners Alliance – we are the only solicitors recommended for lease extensions, enfranchisement, right to manage and right of 1st refusal claims by the only organisation to champion, support and serve Britain’s 17 million homeowners.
2. Progressive Approved – we are one of only three law firms recommended and formally approved by Progressive Property – the UK’s largest property investment education company.
We are also long-standing members of ALEP. The Association of Leasehold Practitioners is the only specialist organisation of lease extension and freehold purchase solicitors and surveyors.
What about lease extension?
Extending your lease is an alternative to lease enfranchisement It’s generally much easier to organise than buying your freehold, but doesn’t give you the same level of control. Our specialist team has dealt with many thousands of lease extensions for satisfied clients nationwide.
Click here to read more about lease extension.
Or click here to find out read more about the differences between extending your lease and buying your freehold
Introduction to specialists surveyors – to value your enfranchisement
Also, because we carry out so many lease extension and enfranchisement cases every year, we have developed a panel of specialist surveyors. So, if you’re looking to enfranchise and exercise the right to buy the freehold of your block, we can put you in touch with, and instruct if you wish, the right surveyor to value your enfranchisement premium.
Lease Enfranchisement – what’s in it for me?
Whilst leasehold enfranchisement offers various advantages there are also important responsibilities and considerations to think about. The pros and cons are outlined below.
- You stop the value of your flat deteriorating – buying the freehold enables you to grant yourself a very long lease, for up to 999 years. And what’s more, you can do this at what’s called a ‘peppercorn rent’ – so your lease becomes, in effect, ground rent free.
- You take over the management and maintenance of your block. This lets you to avoid overly expensive service charges. Poor standards of block management and disputes over service charge levels are among the most popular reasons for lease enfranchisement.
- You can provide your family with a more secure inheritance. Many people simply prefer the increased security that freehold, as distinct to leasehold, property offers
- The value of your block will probably increase – some purchasers avoid purchasing leasehold property.
- Remortgaging your flat will probably become easier. a significant number of mortgage lenders just refuse to lend on any flat with a short lease – particularly if there are less than 60 to 70 years left on the lease.
- You may find it easier if you want to carry out works to your property – provided those leaseholders who also shown the freehold are in agreement
Lease enfranchisement – the disadvantages
• Even when you have bought a share of your freehold, conditions will be attached to your lease. It is therefore sensible to ask a specialist solicitor to update a badly constructed lease or one with unfair terms.
• You will need co-operative neighbours. That’s because whilst collective enfranchisement is easy in a block of two or three flats in which everyone gets on, it can be very difficult in much larger blocks. Drawing together an organised and co-operative group of leaseholders to form a freehold company is often easier said than done.
• Disagreements are likely both amongst freeholders and between freeholders and leaseholders who did not sign up to the collective enfranchisement. Service charges are often the cause of these disputes with people taking different views on what is reasonable.
Click here to read more about Shared Freehold Disputes
• As the freeholder you will be responsible for forming the freehold company, servicing the property, keeping the accounts and ensuring that there is adequate insurance. This can be time-consuming and stressful. If done incorrectly, it can damage property value.
• It can be an expensive process. However, the added property value can usually make up for this.
• Exercising the right to buy your freehold can be time consuming and in most cases will take at least a year. However if your freeholder does not cooperate it can take far longer – see below.
Lease Enfranchisement – Do I Really Need A Specialist Solicitor?
Enfranchisement is a complicated area of law and the formal or statutory route involves a specific process that you need to follow. This process has also a strict timetable you need to follow.
However, the vast majority of solicitors rarely, if ever, come across enfranchisement [also known as leasehold or collective enfranchisement, or freehold purchase]. So it is important to instruct a solicitor who really understands enfranchisement.
If you instruct one of our team, we will help you in the following aspects of the enfranchisement process:
• We will check if you and your fellow tenants meet the eligibility requirements necessary to proceed with buying your freehold.
• We can advise you on setting up a company to manage the freehold and help you in registering that company with Companies House. in addition, we can offer guidance on your responsibilities when it comes to running your company.
• We can introduce you to, as well as instruct on your behalf, the right surveyor with plenty of enfranchisement experience. They will make sure you get the right valuation for your proposed freehold purchase.
• We can draft your Initial Notice that we will then serve on your landlord to start the formal enfranchisement process.
• We will respond on your behalf to your freeholders Counter Notice (or their failure to produce a Counter Notice). And we can work with your surveyor, if necessary, to negotiate on the premium you will need to pay for the freehold.
• In the unlikely event of a dispute that can’t be sorted out, we can represent you at the First Tier Property Tribunal if you have difficulties getting your freeholder to cooperate or agree on a reasonable premium for the freehold.
- Solving problems caused by absentee freeholders.
Click here to read about difficulties with missing freeholders and the solution – the Vesting Order
When is the right time to buy the freehold of my block?
Savvy tenants know the answer to this one – now.
Why? Broadly three reasons:
- Firstly, the price you have to pay your freeholder to enfranchise increases as your lease gets shorter.
- Secondly, when residential property prices are continuing to rise, however slowly. This also increases the level of premium you’re going to have to pay for enfranchisement.
- Thirdly, the sooner you take control of your block, the sooner you can make sure it is managed properly with maintenance and other costs being subject to proper scrutiny. After all, no one is going to look after your money as well as you can.
Lease Enfranchisement – am I eligible?
The first step is whether or not you are eligible to purchase the freehold of your block.
- Do you have what is known as a long lease – that is, a lease that was initially granted for more than 21 years?
- How many flats do you own? If you own any more than three flats in the building, you won’t qualify under the rules of leasehold enfranchisement.
- If you live in a building with only two flats, then both of the leaseholders need to be on board. If you live in a block of flats, then no more than 25% of the building must be used for non-residential purposes and over half of the tenants must be on board before you embark on the process of freehold purchase.
NB It’s worth noting that unlike extending your lease or buying the freehold of your leasehold house, collective enfranchisement of your block can be done whether or not you have owned the property for 2 years, and regardless of whether you have actually lived in the flat at any stage.
Lease Enfranchisement – The costs
If you decided on enfranchisement then it is important that you and your fellow participating leaseholders pay close attention to the costs involved.
Obviously, it is hard to predict exactly how much buying your freehold will cost as it varies according to your property. But there are three particular areas of costs you do need to keep an eye on.
- Getting the right valuationOne thing you should always budget for is a valuation report of the premium you need to pay from a specialist surveyor with plenty of experience of enfranchisement. Getting a report from the wrong surveyor, or doing without such specialist valuation entirely could cost you dear. Here at Bonallack & Bishop, we have developed a panel of valuers who regularly carry out lease extension and enfranchisement valuations and who really know what they’re doing. And we are happy to instruct one of those on your behalf.
- The legal costs of enfranchising
You will have to pay your solicitors costs. These include the cost of serving notice on the current freeholder, setting up a new company to manage the freehold, the cost of transferring the freehold to that new company and preparing new leases. It’s unlikely, but not impossible, that you may have to pay for additional legal costs for representation at the First Tier Property Tribunal if your freeholder is uncooperative and reluctant to sell you the freehold of your block.
Finally, you will also have to pay your freeholder’s “reasonable” legal costs, which will include their legal fees, the cost of their own valuation and his or her conveyancing costs. If you can’t agree with your freeholder on the level of “reasonable” legal costs, you can refer the matter to the First Tier Property Tribunal for a decision. Fortunately this doesn’t happen very often.
- Costs of the new freehold company
Also, and this depends on the size of your block and your fellow leaseholders, once you have set up a company to manage the freehold, you may decide to employ managing agents to handle maintenance of your block on behalf of you and your fellow leaseholders.
Selling your leasehold flat during enfranchisement
It is possible to sell your flat whilst in the process of leasehold or collective enfranchisement – as buying your freehold is more commonly known. However, if you have already signed the participation agreement you will need the buyer of your flat to buy out your share of the purchase cost. Owning part of the freehold is usually very attractive to prospective buyers.
It can often be a useful idea to include clarification over what happens whether anyone wants to sell their flat during the enfranchisement process in your Participation Agreement
Extending your lease as a freeholder
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that becoming a freeholder does not mean that you have to extend your lease. It is still crucial that you extend your lease. But thankfully this is much easier as a freeholder because you only need to cover legal fees.
You should extend your lease to 999 years as soon as possible in order to protect the value of your property.
In order to extend your lease, you must obtain the signatures of the other freeholders. These freeholders would in theory be able to ask for a fee for the leasehold extension. However, this is unlikely to be in their interests as you could then charge them when they require the same service.
Buying a share of the freehold after lease enfranchisement
Those residents who were not party to the original enfranchisement won’t acquire a share of the freehold based on their ownership of their flat. In effect, those who live in the block but are not freeholders are tenants of the newly established freeholder company. And if they didn’t participate in the original enfranchisement, then they have no right to buy a share of freehold at any future date.
However, it is often in the freeholders’ interests to allow flat owners to join in later.And as a result, it’s very common for those people owning a share of freehold to be more than happy to sell another share of the freehold to a flat that didn’t originally participate. This is because they will charge a premium to do so – and can split the cash between them.
But as this is an entirely voluntary arrangement, there is no set method of valuation. The level of premium therefore is entirely up to the existing freeholders – though they may will decide to base it on what would have been the cost of participation in the original enfranchisement. But they don’t need to keep to that price – and in particular if there had been substantial increases in the value of flats, or in the standard of maintenance since the enfranchisement process, they may well want to charge a higher premium.
Extending your lease during enfranchisement
Leases cannot be extended whilst the enfranchisement process is ongoing. Those hoping to extend leases must wait until the new freeholder company is formed in order to extend their leases and then buy the extension from these new freeholders.
Can I extend my lease to 999 years after taking part in enfranchisement?
Yes, you can extend your lease without paying a premium – but only if the other freeholders agree.
If they refuse then you have the statutory right to extend under the 1993 Act, serving the notice upon your own freehold company/group named individuals and paying market value.
For this reason we recommend, when purchasing a freehold collectively that a participation agreement is drawn up. This is a formal document in which the participants agree to stick with the process of enfranchisement. And in addition it can also get everyone to agree that on completion of the freehold purchase, lease extensions will be granted to the participants for nil premium. This realy useful agreement is legally enforceable and can prevent such disputes later on.
We prepare these agreements as part of the service in a freehold purchase. It’s built into our costs estimate.
What if I can’t find the freeholder?
Having a missing freeholder can be a real problem when it comes to plenty of issues regarding the block. Difficulties include organising regular maintenance, renewing insurance and granting lease extensions. As a direct result where your freeholder instead,cannot be found, has moved overseas or is simply completely disinterested in the freehold, it’s often a good idea to buy that freehold.
But without the freeholder to buy from, how can you manage that? The answer is what is known as a vesting order. The process is a little tricky, but our experienced and specialist team can help you with making the correct application.
Click to read more about Vesting Orders for Lease Extensions and Missing Freeholders
How long will my lease enfranchisement take?
If the freeholder agrees a price for the sale of the reversion [i.e. his freehold interest], and if the other leaseholders agreed to share the costs with you, exercising your right to enfranchise can take as little as two months – at least in theory, though this rarely works in practice.
Don’t underestimate, however, the practical problems in both getting support from all your fellow tenants for the whole freehold enfranchisement process and keeping that support going over the months it takes for the collective enfranchisement to be completed.
However without agreement from the freeholder, your application can take much, much longer. That’s because an application to the First-tier Property Tribunal [previously known as the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal] is required to force the landlord to sell and to set a price. This can significantly delay things and can take up to 12 months – or more.
However, fortunately, applications to the First-tier Property Tribunal are relatively uncommon. And 6-12 months is the average length for the whole Leasehold Enfranchisement process.
Click here to find out more about how the First-Tier Property Tribunal works.
Are you a leasehold tenant wanting to buy the freehold of your block?
If so, you really need specialist advice. Because this is a highly intricate area of law and very few property lawyers come across it more than once in a blue moon. In contrast, we have a team of specialist lease enfranchisement and lease extension solicitors – that’s all they do.
Before instructing another solicitor – ask them how many enfranchisement and lease extensions they completed in the last year. We are expecting to do around 450 of these transactions in the current 12 months, and have completed many thousands in the last 20 years.
What is an enfranchisement notice?
The lease enfranchisement notice [which is often referred to as a section 13 notice or initial notice] is a document which is served by the leaseholders owners on their landlord. The document informs the landlord that tenants are planning to jointly conduct the enfranchisement.
In particular the notice should contain an offer price to buy the freehold, along with a list of all of those participating in the enfranchisement. The notice should also set out the deadline date by which a reply from the landlord must be received. This document effectively starts the whole leasehold enfranchisement process.
Click here to read more about the collective enfranchisement process
Notification of new freehold interest
When you buy the freehold reversion of a property, and there are other leaseholders who did not take part in the purchase, you need to be aware that you have a legal requirement to inform those other leaseholders of the change in ownership of the freehold reversion.
This must be done in a prescribed format – a section 3 notice under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The form must include both the name and address of the new freeholders. It must be served within two months of the transfer of ownership.
Failing to notify those leaseholders in this way is a criminal offence – and can result in a fine of up to £2000.
Tips For The Successful Leasehold Enfranchisement Of Your Building
If you’re a tenant looking for a freehold purchase, here are some practical tips on how to successfully enfranchise your block:
• It is usually more cost-efficient for leaseholders to buy the freehold rather than simply extend your own lease. That’s because you can then extend the term of your lease to 999 years and reduce the ground rent to zero
• Call a meeting to gauge interest from leaseholders and consider making joint applications with other leaseholders to extend the leases to your flats (if there is insufficient interest to buy the freehold).
• If there are a number of you interested in buying your freehold, this helps to reduce legal and valuation costs (both yours and the freeholders’ costs for which you are also responsible). It also provides you with greater negotiating power with the premium.
- Once you have decided to go ahead with purchasing the freehold of your block, depending on how many leaseholders are involved, consider drafting and signing up to a participation agreement
Click here for more information about how a participation agreement could help you.
• Establish if there are leaseholders in the block prepared to lead the project. It and really help to have someone who can manage the process and has the time, understanding and interest to drive it forward. And that is particularly the case with larger blocks.
• Poor service and unreasonable behaviour on the part of the landlord or agent make any enfranchisement much more attractive to leaseholders.
• Obtain specialist legal advice from experienced lease enfranchisement solicitors. You should be aware that most solicitors simply don’t come across freehold purchase very often, if ever. So it really is important that you pick yourself an expert in this field to assist you with the legal side
• Instruct a suitably qualified specialist surveyor to help you to gauge the cost of the extended lease and negotiate the premium payable to your freeholder on your behalf
The importance of the right of 1st refusal
Provided you qualify to buy your freehold, your freeholder is legally obliged to offer the freehold of your block of flats to you, and your fellow leaseholders first before placing it on the open market, or selling it privately. And if your freeholder fails to offer to sell the freehold to leaseholders, they commit a criminal offence.
Click here to read more about the right of first refusal
Does lease enfranchisement also apply to houses?
Yes – although the vast majority of collective enfranchisement applications involve blocks of leasehold flats, it is also possible to buy the freehold of your leasehold house.
Click here to read more about house enfranchisement
Is there an alternative route to enfranchise if our freeholder has consistently breached management obligations?
Yes. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 provides for an alternative route in this case – though it’s very rarely used and few lawyers are even aware of it.
Click here to read more about Landlord & Tenant Act Acquisition Orders
FAQs
What is property enfranchisement?
Enfranchisement refers to buying the freehold of a property. Collective enfranchisement is when a group of flat owners jointly purchase the freehold.
There are several benefits to this, including the ability to extend your leases without paying a premium. Over time, if the years remaining on a lease drop below around 80 years, your property will lose value. Buying the freehold can prevent this from happening as you will be able to grant yourselves leases of 999 years.
The majority of leasehold property owners have the right to enfranchise. As a group, you can form a property management company. You will be responsible for dealing with issues such as buildings insurance, maintenance and collecting service charges.
If you own a leasehold house and buy the freehold, you can merge the leasehold and freehold titles so your property is freehold.
How long does leasehold enfranchisement take?
The length of time it takes to purchase a freehold can vary widely. If you live in a block with relatively few flats, your fellow leaseholders are organised and willing to join in the process and you are able to agree on a premium with the freeholder, the whole process can be dealt with in under six months.
However, the process often takes longer. You need to work with the other leaseholders to ensure they are on board and prepared to do what is required. If you follow a formal route, your solicitor will need to serve notice on the landlord and negotiations over the price will usually follow. This means the purchase can take a year or longer.
Occasionally, it is necessary to ask the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to decide on the price payable. This can further delay the completion of the enfranchisement, particularly if there is a delay in receiving a court date.
