freehold management company dissolved!

sara117red

hi.

we are in the process of selling our house. we bought it five years ago and it was a condition of the mortgage that we set up a management company with the owner of the downstairs property (it's two split level maisonettes) and that the management company owns the share of freehold. this was all fine.

now we have come to sell the house, our buyer's solicitors have pointed out that the management company has been dissolved. apparently the freehold now technically belongs to the Crown ...

my question is, what is the best/quickest way to resolve this so our house sale can still go ahead?? do we set up a new management company? restore the old one? how do we get the freehold baxk??

thank you!

eddddy

I'm guessing that you formed a management company, then failed to submit returns and accounts - so your company was struck off.

So if you were a director of the company, you have committed criminal offences. You will probably have to pay penalties and legal costs. (Companies House say they can also prosecute you for this, but I suspect that's rare.)

Anyway, I believe you will need to restore the company.

See this link, especially chapter 2 section 4 "What happens to the assets of a dissolved company?" onwards: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/429205/GP4_Strike_off__dissolution___restoration_v3_8-ver0.1-4.pdf

I've no experience of this, but if you're lucky, you may be able to get an 'Administrative Restoration'. Otherwise you'll need a court order.

It sounds like it may be quite expensive and time consuming.

Good luck!

AlexMac

I've no idea about the legalities other than having been a shared freeholder myself in several flats, and don't mean to be alarmist, but...

...given that - apart from maintenance - the Freehold company's major role is to insure the structure of the house, you might just check that cover is in place? And if not, insure it pronto!

Not that you should trust my advice. My major screw-up as (amateur) Treasurer of one of our past freeholder companies was to get the annual Companies House accounts in a day late; thereby incurring a £150 penalty! Luckily my co-directors were forgiving types