Leasehold restrictions

PawelK

princeofpounds said:

Thanks - yes I think were being too specific in terms of thinking about the law. It's not that prescriptive, the legal situation develops organically from the laws on property ownership, leasehold/freehold law, insurance and health & safety law, and civil liability. 

There will be more specific building regulations around fire escapes on new construction, but that doesn't actually apply to already-existing buildings. 

Just wait and see if you get the demand, and whether it it enforced in practice. In most flats with communal space it's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game, with the freeholders clearing the communal spaces and the leaseholders slowly creeping stuff back in over following months. 

Interestingly, a neighbour from a block next to, who occupies ground floor flat for the last nice years and is the most active person to play with children on the communal lawns, told me about the forthcoming plans and asked if I wanted to pass my email onto another guy (the ones from trampolines) who will be trying to send a collective email to the managing company. I am at the moment reluctant to give my email to him and get involved without knowing what exactly is coming my way so I told him that as long as no notice comes through I consider the subject not binding. These two are actually keeping lot of stuff outside of their ground floor flats (and probably in front of the bottom of the staircases).

PawelK

NameUnavailable said:

It's no so much law but what your lease actually says. It almost certainly has something along the lines of use of common areas for access only and use of the communal gardens (but not to set up trampolines or sheds or private areas).

I am wondering why the sudden change however - have you had a change of management company recently? I had a flat where we each had some personal items outside our front doors (also not in any way blocking access) and a new management company was appointed who then gave notice that items would be removed within X days. Oddly however, they refused to do anything about the flat who were taking over the communal garden with their own furniture, clothes line etc., and who happened to be related to the freeholder..........

We had the same company for number of years, at least since I moved in here, which was in October 2017. Lousy but the same.... I will probably contact my ex- next door neighbour who is one of the directors of the residents company which I assume is responsible for appointing the MC. I recently asked MC to forward their set of accounts for me to have a look at to ensure our service charge is spent efficiently but that's a whole new topic of conversation and for me learning curve aboutlabout nuances.

NameUnavailable

PawelK said:

NameUnavailable said:

It's no so much law but what your lease actually says. It almost certainly has something along the lines of use of common areas for access only and use of the communal gardens (but not to set up trampolines or sheds or private areas).

I am wondering why the sudden change however - have you had a change of management company recently? I had a flat where we each had some personal items outside our front doors (also not in any way blocking access) and a new management company was appointed who then gave notice that items would be removed within X days. Oddly however, they refused to do anything about the flat who were taking over the communal garden with their own furniture, clothes line etc., and who happened to be related to the freeholder..........

We had the same company for number of years, at least since I moved in here, which was in October 2017. Lousy but the same.... I will probably contact my ex- next door neighbour who is one of the directors of the residents company which I assume is responsible for appointing the MC. I recently asked MC to forward their set of accounts for me to have a look at to ensure our service charge is spent efficiently but that's a whole new topic of conversation and for me learning curve aboutlabout nuances.

It is a legal requirement for accounts to be made available within a certain period of time however they don't need to send them to you if they want to be awkard, they just need to make them available for you to inspect at their offices. It sounds like you have a Right to manage company or shared freehold, but have appointed a management company to do the actual work. They will have legal obligations to enforce the terms of the lease, which probably include keeping any communal areas clear of personal effects, so a petition isn't going to help.

eddddy

Perhaps the most likely scenario is that a leaseholder has complained to the freeholder that other leaseholders are breaching the covenants in their leases by having trampolines, tables, chairs, plant pots etc.

Leases are usually structured such that if one leaseholder complains that other leaseholders are breaching covenants, the freeholder must take action to enforce the covenants. So the freeholder has no choice, and no discretion.

The only way you can challenge it is if you can argue that the lease does allow trampolines, tables, chairs, plant pots etc (perhaps by carefully reading the lease, and/or looking for past leasehold tribunal decisions that support your case).

So perhaps there is a 'complaining leaseholder' who is is quietly keeping their head down somewhere in the block!