© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
This piece aims to shed some light on the leaseholder’s statutory right which enables them to take charge of the management of their building by removing existing managing agents.
The formal Right to Manage (RTM) procedure provides leaseholders with the power to collectively decide who they would like to manage their block. This can be exercised even if the existing managing agent is technically “not at fault”. So long as the right procedure is adopted the landlord has little say in objecting to the request.
There are only two grounds on which a Claim Notice can be disputed. These are that the building does not qualify, or there are insufficient participating leaseholders. In most cases the RTM company will become responsible to all leaseholders for: Services, Repairs, Maintenance, Insurance, Management of the whole or part of the building.
What an RTM company can do
So long as thirty days prior notice has been given by the RTM company to the landlord, it can grant approval to any qualifying leaseholder’s request for the following: Assignments, Underletting, Charging, Parting with possession, the making of structural alterations, improvements, alterations of use. In all other cases the RTM company cannot grant approvals without having given the landlord fourteen days notice. The landlord cannot unreasonably withhold such consent.
Obligations under the lease
The RTM company has the legal right to take action to enforce any obligation entered in to by any leaseholder of the building under a lease. This can include where a leaseholder is in breach by causing another leaseholder a nuisance.
Membership of the RTM company
There must be at least 50% of the number of flats in the block to qualify.
The RTM process
It may be prudent to get your landlord to comply with their obligations under the lease for example repairs to the structure of the building before taking over with an RTM company. Equally it may be more appropriate to purchase the freehold of the building even though this option is likely to be significantly more expensive.
Why you should consider purchasing the freehold instead?
Allows the leaseholders who join in the freehold purchase to collectively agree on the management of the block and also take on the obligations on the part of the landlord set out in the lease.
Those that participate in the purchase can extend their leases to 999 years and reduce the rent to a peppercorn.
Receive future rental payments from those leaseholders that choose not to participate in the purchase of the freehold and also the premium a non participating leaseholder may pay, if they decide to extend their lease.
Selchouk Sami is a Solicitor at Stennett & Stennett