Q&A - Leaseholders v Tenants 

One of the tenants has a lot of visitors, who collectively can occupy up to 6 car spaces at a time. We have free parking at the back of our building which also attracts non-residential visitors, one of which has been seen parked at the back for days at a time.

Leaseholders and residents are often forced to park on the main road.

Our building secretary has been advised by the freeholder that we will not be able to impose sanctions limiting the number of cars per flat, and cannot do anything about the non-residential car users other than to pester them not to park there!

Please can you advise on what can be done about this problem. I am also interested to know whether leaseholders would have any kind of priority over tenants in relation to tenants.

RESPONSE 

When it comes to the ownership of parking spaces/ parking rights on leasehold properties it can be a tricky situation.  The first step we would advise is to ask a solicitor to review your lease so they can assess what parking rights each leaseholder has and advise you accordingly on the matter. If you do need to take action to enforce the terms of the lease, formal legal proceedings are a costly measure and should be regarded as a last resort. Instead it might be beneficial to look at other forms of alternative dispute resolution such as mediation or getting all the leaseholders and tenants of the property together to discuss the situation.

In terms of the second part of the question, it is important to note that leaseholders have no priority over tenants when it comes to rights to the property; a leaseholder who lawfully sub-lets their property will ordinarily do so granting the same rights they benefited from when in residence there themselves. 

Matthew Wayman, Solicitor at Brady Solicitors