surrender of head lease - help!

sadsocks

hello,

our head leaseholder has neglected the property i live in for over 10 years and it is in a terrible state. in an attempt to resolve the situation the freeholder has asked the head leaseholder to surrender the head lease. after years of arguing, the head leaseholder has said he will do this, if all his costs are paid for by the freeholder. the freeholder has agreed but has said the entire costs of surrendering the head lease - freeholder and head leaseholder costs - will be recovered from the flat owners as part of the service charge.

can they do this? we flat owners did not cause this dispute and have been powerless to resolve it as it dragged on for years - so it seems unfair to make us pay the costs of a dispute between the two of them. we have also incurred our own legal costs as a result of the dispute. and interestingly the freeholder had previously turned down an offer from the head leaseholder - that they each pay their own costs in relation to surrender of the head lease!

please can anyone offer any advice?
thank you so much..

Fire_Fox

Check your long leases to see what charges can and cannot be levied, also try here http://www.lease-advice.org/publications/
LEASE also have a free telephone advice line if neither of those avenues hold the answer.

Richard_Webster

Unless each lessee has signed something whereby he agrees to pay the freeholder's costs of getting the surrender of the head-lease, the only way the freeholder can recover these costs is through the service charge and similar provisions in the leases. You will need to read your lease very carefully. Ask the freeholder to point out the provisions in your lease that allow him to do this.

Having said that if the freeholder has acted to help the lessees he may say that won't go any further unless you agree to reimburse his costs.

Also there may be something in the head-lease that allows him recourse against the recalcitrant head-lessee. Even if there is such provision it may be difficult to enforce and the head-lessee may not have the assets to pay these costs.

propertyman

While Firefox is correct about your lease not allowing recovery of costs, this is just about the silliest way to resolve this.

Unless your leases makes specific provision for the freeholder to assume the duties of the HL
1-you have no landlord ( the person who granted the lease to you- to carry out that role
2- the FH has no ability to recover their costs legal or service charges

There is no automatic provision in law for the responsibility in the HL, to look after the building, reverting to the FH and him having to do anything.

That would the require the leases to be varied so that your landlord, see 1, is now the FH.

The better way is for the FH to have the HL assigned (sold say for £1) to him particularly as this will be very simple and cheap to so.

If you do not trust the FH( or prefer DIY management) then simply exercise as a group the right to manage and that then means that virtually all the management responsibility is taken away from either FH or HL and given to the residents. http://www.lease-advice.org/publications/documents/document.asp?item=21

:money:If you spend money on anything spend it on your own management set up as after all the FH is saying "look I will take it on as long as you my for my costs".

sadsocks

Dear Fire fox, Richard, and property man,

thank you so much for your helpful, and quick responses. we will take a look at our lease, and seek some advice from the leasehold advisory service on our position,

thank you again