© 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.
The leasehold sector sector is highly regulated. Successive Landlord and Tenant Acts have introduced measures designed to protect the leaseholders from the excesses of unreasonable and exploitative landlords. In difficult financial times, landlords are perhaps seeking more creative ways of maximising a return on their investments. Substantive measures are now in place to govern service charges through to the Right to Manage, which enables the leaseholders to take over the landlord’s management functions, and the right to enfranchise, the ultimate sanction against bad landlords, if the building qualifies and leaseholders can afford it. Surely this is sufficient to reign in the worst landlords? The answer I fear is a firm no.
My recent experience is that leaseholders have little legal protection in the face of an aggressive freeholder or head leaseholder determined to bring parts of the property not demised as flats into “economic use” by exercising proprietary rights. These rights, depending on the lease covenants in each case, often have no qualification or control imposed by the raft of legislation designed to protect tenants. Economic use is normally a pseudonym for selling or letting an area for a financial return, sometime to people with no other interest in the block of flats. Therefore areas historically in general use for the benefit of all leaseholders get lost forever, hived off at a profit to third parties, whilst the leaseholders struggle to exercise management control over the new arrangements. Often the RTM or RMC may be excluded from the legal arrangements to lease or develop as they are seen to be troublesome or noncooperative by trying to defend their patch.
Examples include the installation of telephone masts, development rights for roof spaces or other areas, conversion of general baggage rooms, bike stores, pram sheds etc into commercial lets and so on with rents and premiums passing to the landlord.
That is not to say all development is bad. Enlightened landlords will normally offer some benefit, refurbished common parts or service installations or even a financial contribution to running costs, as an incentive to leaseholders to co-operate on a project. In my experience however, landlords often simply override the interest of leaseholders in the pursuit of profit by flexing their proprietary muscle. What can leaseholders do therefore in the face of aggressive landlords?
Firstly you must review the covenant in leases and other documents which may permit or restrict the landlord’s activities. Once this is done, you can attempt to engage the landlord in a sensible discussion on future arrangements. If that fails then leaseholders must consider what protection planning law provides to make representations on proposed works or changes of use. You will need good legal and professional advice and resilience. There is never any guarantee of success but one must hope that common sense will prevail!