Breach of lease, need advice

zod666

Hi

I bought a leasehold flat about 2 years ago. It's is part of a block of 20 flats and each owner has a share of the freehold (Ltd company, guarantee). About six of the owners are 'directors' with the rest (including me) being members.

The flat is a 2bed ground floor, with concrete underfloor. Now, when I bought it the flat had laminate flooring in the living room, hall and bedrooms. I replaced this with real wood flooring (oak) with a noise reducing underfloor. Now the lease states that the floor should be carpeted in all rooms except the bathroom and kitchen.

Recently, there was a problem with my bathroom extractor fan which caused a disturbance to the upstairs neighbour. When I was notified by the neighbour I immediately disabled it and had a new silent one fitted within 2 days.

Now out of malice, that neighbour has complained to the mgmt company that my wood flooring and fan were disturbing them and the mgmt company have asked me to lay carpet everywhere. As you can imagine this is the last thing I want to do as I have already spent a lot of money on the flooring and as a compromise I have told them that I will lay rugs in each room and that the extractor fan is now fixed.

My questions are:

1) if they still insist that I need to lay carpets do I have anyway to resist this?
2) other properties in the block have laminate floor (I have pictures of a ground floor flat rented recently which shows this flooring throughout), could I argue that as this covenant has already been breached it is no longer valid? I don't want to cause anyone else grief but why should I be punished if other owners have breached the lease
3) do the directors have more power than the members of the company? One of the directors is a pain and is likely to pursue this.
4) can they go all the way and forfeit the lease for non compliance? Would a court look at the fact that I have laid rugs to mitigate noise and the fact other flats have this flooring deem that I am bring unfairly harrassed?
5) is forfeiting the lease a long and complex process that is expensive for the mgmt company to pursue?

The issue around noise is a complete fabrication so wondering other than getting the councils noise team to measure and rule against me (no chance of this happening) would this mean that every noise. Complaint would be accepted unless I could prove it invalid or is the onus on the complainer proving it.

Thanks for reading, any feedback welcome

AdrianC

If the lease says you need carpets, then you need carpets. End of. Whether others are also in breach is irrelevant to whether you are in breach and enforcement action should be taken against you. Enforcement should be consistent, of course, with everybody in breach being similarly required to come back into compliance with the lease you all agreed to. Whether you think the reasons for requiring carpets are valid or not is irrelevant. You have agreed to have carpets.

Directors of a company are the people who run it. You all own a share of it, but the directors are the ones who actually do the work, carry the legal responsibility, and make the decisions.

G_M

Have you read your lease? I'm afraid I haven't!

What does it say, if anything, about flooring?

Rather than ask us to guess

1) if they still insist that I need to lay carpets do I have anyway to resist this?

- tell us what the lease says.....

pimento

Rugs might be a way forward.

KTpriceless

You are a ground floor flat? If there isn't a flat below you, I'm confused as to how the person above can be disturbed? I think the freehold directors would be unreasonable to enforce the covenant. If they did, I'd be inclined to take it the the LVT.

zod666

AdrianC wrote: »

If the lease says you need carpets, then you need carpets. End of. Whether others are also in breach is irrelevant to whether you are in breach and enforcement action should be taken against you. Enforcement should be consistent, of course, with everybody in breach being similarly required to come back into compliance with the lease you all agreed to. Whether you think the reasons for requiring carpets are valid or not is irrelevant. You have agreed to have carpets.

Directors of a company are the people who run it. You all own a share of it, but the directors are the ones who actually do the work, carry the legal responsibility, and make the decisions.

While the lease stipulates that the floors must have carpet, is it really fair that:

1) other leaseholders have breached this but because they are friends with the directors they can carry on with impunity? While I would be loath to comply, if I have to I don't see why others should be exempt

2) the directors knew the previous owner had laminate floor and that I replaced this for wood floor and had this for 2 years before a complaint was made. Does that not mean they 'accepted' this covenant was circumvented and therefore it is unenforceble?

3) just because they are directors does not mean they 'do all the work', we have a maintenance company that the mgmt company has appointed to do all that.

4) I'm not sure a director in the case has more 'power' than a member, we all have an equal share of the freehold

Jeez I hope you aren't a surgeon with the power of life and death mr 'black and white'.

zod666

G_M wrote: »

Have you read your lease? I'm afraid I haven't!

What does it say, if anything, about flooring?

Rather than ask us to guess
- tell us what the lease says.....

Yes, and it specifically states that all flooring other than bathrooms or kitchen should have carpet with underlay.

zod666

pimento wrote: »

Rugs might be a way forward.

I'm hoping that will appease them but the director in question is retired and likes nothing more than annoying people.

zod666

KTpriceless wrote: »

You are a ground floor flat? If there isn't a flat below you, I'm confused as to how the person above can be disturbed? I think the freehold directors would be unreasonable to enforce the covenant. If they did, I'd be inclined to take it the the LVT.

Exactly, the whole 'noise' thing was caused by the extractor fan but because the director didn't like us having wood floors they have used this to 'beef up the complaint'. The fact that it is also a concrete subfloor with sound absorbing underfloor then real wood means there is next to zero noise and if the council did bring in a noise team they would laugh the mgmt company out of there.

pimento

Could you not tell them you have complied? If there really is no noise, they'd never know otherwise.

G_M

Zod666 wrote: »

While the lease stipulates that the floors must have carpet, is it really fair that:

1) other leaseholders have breached this but because they are friends with the directors they can carry on with impunity? While I would be loath to comply, if I have to I don't see why others should be exempt
I got done for speeding last month Seems totally unfair as I've seen other people speeding....

2) the directors knew the previous owner had laminate floor and that I replaced this for wood floor and had this for 2 years before a complaint was made. Does that not mean they 'accepted' this covenant was circumvented and therefore it is unenforceble?
Often freeholders/directors will ignore minor breaches if no one is being impacted by the breach. Once a complaint is made, however,.....

In relation to the 'friends' you refer to in 1) above, has anyone formally complained about them.....?
3) just because they are directors does not mean they 'do all the work', we have a maintenance company that the mgmt company has appointed to do all that.
No comment, as irrelevant to this issue

4) I'm not sure a director in the case has more 'power' than a member, we all have an equal share of the freehold
The Directors are empowered by the Company (of which you are all shareholders) to 'manage' things - including breaches like this

Being on the ground floor means the disurbance would be less than if you were above someone. But noise travels in different ways, and could still be disturbing someone to the side/above.

Using rugs, avoiding stilettos and removing shoes could all help, but at the end of the day, 'carpet clauses' are there to protect leaseolders from disturbing each other.