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Leasehold enfranchisement solicitors

Our multi-award winning leasehold enfranchisement solicitors can help you protect and enhance the value in your property.

Leasehold enfranchisement allows leaseholders to buy the freehold of their property, or to extend its lease. It’s a complex area of law for both landlord and tenants, requiring expert guidance. Our specialist enfranchisement lawyers advise landlords and leaseholders on a wide range of claims. Whether making house claims, collective claims, rights of first refusal or right to manage claims, our dedicated team has extensive experience.

We also provide strategic advice to developers on how to avoid the risk of enfranchisement. This includes the potential impact of the regime on mixed-use properties.

Our experience includes leading cases such as Hosebay in the Supreme Court, Sportelli in the House of Lords and Mundy in the Court of Appeal.

 

How we can help

We keep it simple. Our expert advice is clear and jargon free. Our enfranchisement solicitors can assist with:

View our enfranchisement and lease extension guide.

Meet the team

Our leasehold enfranchisement experience

Our client successes

  • Case study
  • Defending leaseholder rights to acquire ‘common parts’

    3 min

    Read about an important victory secured for our leaseholder clients concerning the definition of common parts.

    Read the case study

    How we made a difference

    Frequently asked questions

    To be a qualifying tenant you must own a long lease which, when originally granted, was for a term of 21 years or more. You do not qualify if:
    • you own 3 or more flats in the building
    • you hold a business lease To qualify the building must:
    • be an independent building, or part of a building, which is capable of independent development
    • contain two or more flats held by qualifying tenants
    • have at least 75% of the internal floor space used for residential purposes
    • have at least two-thirds of the flats in the building held by qualifying tenants
    The building does not qualify if:
    • it comprises 4 or less flats and there is a “resident” freeholder
    • the building is part of an operational railway
    Yes, unless the buildings are linked into such a way whereby they might be deemed to constitute one building.
    This only matters if there are less than four flats in the building and one of them is occupied by your landlord. If that is the case the building does not qualify.
    Yes. It was at one time necessary that at least one half of the participating tenants should fulfil a residence condition. This has now been abolished.
    Yes. It is a popular misconception that you need to have owned the lease of your flat for a period of at least two years in order to be a participating tenant in a collective claim.
    Your valuer should also be asked to advise upon how the price should be apportioned between participating tenants. The flats may differ in size and the leases can be of varying terms. This means each flat will have a different value attributed to it as part of the overall value. If there is a large difference in these then it is equitable to split the overall premium   relative to those values. If there is little difference it may be easier to split the premium equally. Based on your valuer’s advice, it is up to the participating tenants to decide on this. However the decision should be documented in the participation agreement.
    Many tenants decide to apportion all costs on the same basis on which the premium is apportioned, or alternatively they can be split equally; there is no set rule. Again, whatever is decided should be properly documented in the participation agreement.
    No. This had been envisaged in the Right to Enfranchise legislation in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 but the provisions of this part of that Act have not been brought into force.

    Contact us

    If you have a question or need advice, please let us know how we can help.

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