Declaration of Trust - Landlord Rights

ReallyTallDwarf

Hi Everyone,


I own a flat in a residential building (4 flats in total). Two of the flats are owned by landlords who rent them out. Two are lived in by the people who actually own them.

We are in the process of purchasing the freehold for the building and have drawn up a declaration of trust to outline ownership and maintenance requirements, etc.

We added a statement that maintenance decisions are made by committee. Because two of the flats are owned by landlords who would not always be able to attend a meeting I suggested that we add a statement that the owner can choose a representative to act on their behalf.

I would however like to set a condition that the representative must hold permanent residence in the property. However, one of the other residence has said that this is a violation of landlord’s rights and that the representative can be anyone the owner appoints. Is this correct?

davidmcn

It's a rather odd condition you're trying to include. Why would it have to be someone resident in the property? I wouldn't have thought a landlord would normally want (or expect) their tenant to attend such meetings, they'd be more likely to send someone else as their agent.

steampowered

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable requirement to me. I don't think there is any legal "right" for the landlords to appoint a representative - this is surely all determined by what is agreed and set out in the legal documents.

Whether the landlords would agree to it is another matter. I would have thought the landlords would want to be able to nominate whoever they want as their representative?

It is very common for companies to include limitations around who is permitted to act as the representative of a director at board meetings.

silvercar

What happens if one of the properties is owned by someone who is in a care home or hospital? They wouldn't then be able to attend and there would be no one living in the property who would satisfy your criteria.

You also need to allow for someone who has power of attorney over the owner to attend.

scottishblondie

As a tenant, I would not want to rent a flat where I was obliged to attend meetings and make decisions on my LL's behalf. One of the perks of renting is that all that stuff isn't your responsibility.

As a landlord, I would absolutely not allow my tenant to be party to any decisions. I would want to be able to appoint my own representative that I trusted to make well-informed decisions on my behalf, not someone who I barely know, and who may not have my best interests at heart.

It is a very odd condition to want to impose, as I don't know why you would want to allow someone who has no material stake in the property to be able to make decisions about it simply because they live there. I doubt you're going to get the other owners to agree to it, and I don't see why you would have a problem with the any of the other owners appointing their own agent if necessary. Indeed, given that we live in 2016 could you not just allow the 2 absent owners to attend the meetings via Skype (for example) if they cannot be physically present?

G_M

Balmy!

Each joint freeholder should get a vote and be entitled to send whoever they choose to represent them.

Certainly NOT limited to their tenant!

Rosemary7391

OP, why do you want to set this condition? There must be a reason? I suspect there's a better way to achieve what you want.