Help with cat in leasehold flat - Director with passive/aggressive behaviour

Luisaandhercat

NameUnavailable said:

Write to Jenrick and your local MP - see if they can write to your management company/freeholders to appeal on your behalf.

Hi, Thank you very much for your comments.

I will definitely look into this.

Many thanks.

AdrianC

Luisaandhercat said:
Yes, it is a pity we did not read the lease properly. I know it may be hard to understand for people who are from/have been living in England all their lives...but a "leasehold" does not exist in some other countries; hence we are learning the hard way everything about leaseholds now. I don't expect people to understand because I can imagine, if we had been familiar with the concept as people are here, it seems absurd not to read it properly, etc.

Not being familiar with what a lease in general may or may not allow would, to my mind, be a good reason TO read it.

If you were unfamiliar with the concepts of flat ownership in the UK, did you ask your solicitor's advice or explanation?

We don't have a document saying she "needs a cat" obviously, as no need for such a document before.

Then it might be worth asking the GP for one, if you plan on using this as justification...

You ask "and?" in terms of us considering the decision biased and unfair. Again, are we being naive thinking that if someone accuses you, that person shouldn't be the one deciding the outcome?

They aren't "accusing" you of anything.
The pet's existence is a simple statement of fact...

They are merely the person who noticed your comment referring to the fact that you have a pet.

The other dogs, etc. belong to people in our Estate; not our building. ... No one in our building has pets.

And you've said in other posts that previous requests for permission for a pet have been flat refused.
I'm sorry, but I think you're going to be out of luck here.

Luisaandhercat

macman said:

Forgetting about the cat for the moment; who the hell buys a flat without reading every single word of the lease, 'loosely' or otherwise?
What else could be lurking in there that you 'weren't expecting to find'? 

Hi, as per my previous comments, I now understand how silly/naive this looks to people who are from England or have been living here most of their lives.

Believe it or not, when you explain this situation to friends who own flats in different countries (as we did before in Spain, Ireland and Uruguay) they can't understand how there is something called "lease" that can dictate whether you can have an indoor cat in your flat.

We do understand (knowing everything we know now; lessons learned) that having a leasehold means you have sometimes less rights than someone who is a tenant; which for us is shocking; but it's a different system and we have to accept it, of course. We just didn't foresee having this kind of problem being owners in England. We now (late) know.

Luisaandhercat

wannabe_a_saver said:

Skiddaw1 said:

Have to say that if it were me I'd put the flat on the market and move rather than rehome my cat. Really feel for you OP and hope it works out.

I agree with this, I wouldn't choose a flat over an animal I'd committed to care for.  

That said, lung conditions are usually made worse by cats, not better, so I wouldn't push that angle too much. 

Make your appeal, give your evidence that the cat is not a nuisance to anybody and that withholding permission is unreasonable.  Hopefully you will win but if you lose just put the flat on the market and move to somewhere you can take your cat without breaching the lease.  They aren't going to waste money ending the lease when you are leaving anyway. 

Hi, thanks for your comments. We are not saying the cat is better for her lung condition (and the condition is more complicated thatn that); we are saying it's good for her mental health, which is nothing but the truth.

Luisaandhercat

NameUnavailable said:

macman said:

Forgetting about the cat for the moment; who the hell buys a flat without reading every single word of the lease, 'loosely' or otherwise?
What else could be lurking in there that you 'weren't expecting to find'? 

I would hazard a guess that the majority of buyers never read the lease.

They will only see it late in the process, after paying for mortgage/broker fees, surveys, valuations, searches etc., and then rely on the solicitor to tell them if there's any show stoppers (but doubtful a solicitor will mention clauses about pets in their comments.

In fact a lot of buyers don't even know what the lease is, they think they're buying the actual flat.

And even after all the comments here, I am still strugging to understand how we did not "buy the actual flat"?

(Honest question).

Jumblebumble

AdrianC said:

Splatfoot said:

What  can they do if you don't comply?

They can apply for a legal injunction to enforce the lease - for which the infringing leaseholder would have to pay the costs (if successful), and all leaseholders would have to pay a share (if unsuccessful).

Ultimately, as has been said, the lease can be forfeit. But legal costs long before that stage would be utterly horrendous, to the point that only a total monomaniac would still have the damn cat. Or, likely, the flat - having been forced into bankruptcy by the costs...

I suspect that the director will go to a solicitor who will tell them that they have an excellent case and if they would just care to transfer £2000 in upfront fees the case can then  get started
At this point who knows what will happen next

davidmcn

Luisaandhercat said:

NameUnavailable said:

macman said:

Forgetting about the cat for the moment; who the hell buys a flat without reading every single word of the lease, 'loosely' or otherwise?
What else could be lurking in there that you 'weren't expecting to find'? 

I would hazard a guess that the majority of buyers never read the lease.

They will only see it late in the process, after paying for mortgage/broker fees, surveys, valuations, searches etc., and then rely on the solicitor to tell them if there's any show stoppers (but doubtful a solicitor will mention clauses about pets in their comments.

In fact a lot of buyers don't even know what the lease is, they think they're buying the actual flat.

And even after all the comments here, I am still strugging to understand how we did not "buy the actual flat"?

(Honest question).

What you've bought is the tenant's interest in a long lease of the flat.

What advice did you actually get from your solicitor during the purchase process? 

princeofpounds

This isn't a judicial process. It simply does not matter if the complainant is also a Director. 

Luisa, please read through my post again. There are a number of important issues that I believe you are not fully touching on.

- You indicate that one of the Directors is supportive of you. Have you had a proper conversation with them about whether the Board has actually discussed this, or whether the decision has been taken either by an individual Director and/or staff of the management company (or the agency that operates it). The Directors, as a Board, can overrule these things if they agree to do so. This Director can raise it, if they feel they have the support.

- Please look up the freehold titles for your property. It is very likely to cover all the buildings on the estate, or all the apartment buildings on the estate. It is possible it just applies to your building, but given some things you have said, I suspect not. You cannot assume that a Director who lives in a house is living in a freehold property - it would be unusual, though not impossible, for them to be a Director in that case. You cannot assume that people in the other buildings are not relevant without clarifying the precise structure of the tenure. You still haven't confirmed if you are a share-of-freeholder either, unless I missed it.

- As stated by others subsequent to me, you do not need to remove the cat yet. Enforcement is not a foregone conclusion.

- Oh, and how did you 'not buy the actual flat'. A leasehold property is a rental agreement; that's literally what a lease means. It's a form of rental agreement which is very long term, where the tenant ('owner') has a lot more power than short term rental agreements, but not all the powers that comes with being a freehold owner. Because people feel like owners of the flats in most respects, people are generally very happy to talk about 'owning' the property despite technically being a tenant. 

It is the legal solution that developed in England and Wales to deal with the issue of living in communal structures like apartments (it can be used in other ways too). Every country has to have some kind of solution of this manner - leasehold is not as different to other systems as people think, but it does have important quirks that are important to understand. The leasehold system comes in for a lot of criticism, some of it justified, but often people overstate the problems that are really fundamental to the legal structure itself.

To be fair, even freehold 'owners' are technically just tenants too, given that the Crown is basically supreme. But tenants with enduring tenure and complete freedom to do anything within the law (which is more than you get in a Civil Code system like much of the continent).

Luisaandhercat

wannabe_a_saver said:

davidmcn said:

I would have thought the likelihood of anybody bothering to go legal about an indoors cat to be pretty remote.

I'd have thought the chance of anyone refusing permission for a cat that's already there and hasn't bothered anybody were pretty remote, but its happened, so the OP may be dealing with someone unreasonable or we may not be getting the full story. 

Thanks for your comments. I can assure you you are getting the full story (hence my asking this in a forum; I don't think it's useful for me to get replies based on only part of the story).

Our cat is an 100% indoor cat; never goes out; does not meow loud (we joke about it because she does this sound: "prrrrrr") when she wants something; no fleas; vaccinated; microchipped.

My fiancee adores it and decided as soon as we got her that she would be indoors, for the cat's safety and for birds outside.

Luisaandhercat

We are not stating that the cat is a medical necessity; we are saying that it does wonders for my partner's mental health, having suffered from anxiety, being in the middle of a pandemic, having no family here, etc.

wilfred30 said:

But that's exactly what you say you told the Management Company in your opening post.

Coming at this from a slightly different angle, how many Directors are there?  You need to find out whether any decision they make needs to unanimous or whether one Director can object whilst the others do not thus resulting in permission being denied.

Hi,

My apologies, I didn't express myself clearly:

What I meant was that we are not saying it's good for her lung condition; we are saying it's good for her mental health (I'm clarifying this because someone else understood that and I assumed you did too).

There are 3 Directors; 2 live in our building and another one somewhere else.

Thank you for the different angle; that's a good point.

We are trying to find that out (wrote to the Managing company asking: "I would therefore be grateful for an explanation on the decision-making process and reasonable grounds for denial, as well as an understanding of whether it came down to yourself and the three Directors, as advised by x in a previous email."