Leasehold/freehold

MalcW

Apologies if this has been asked before or not applicable to the topic.
We own a flat with a long lease. Each flat owner has an equal share of the freehold. There are 8 flats which were owned by one gentleman who has sold these to individuals including 1 to us. He has 1 flat left. He is also the director of the limited company running the freeholds, day to day running. He does all of it. Health and safety, inspections on communal areas and accounts etc. He wants to retire and sell the remaining flat. 
The question is or issue. He states that unless one of us becomes the director/s we lose the freehold to the government. We are wondering whether to pass this work to a managing agent. We understand that this will push up monthly payments, currently £50 each a month.  He states that even if we bring in an agent one of us still have to be a director?
The issue isn't with the current director it's more that no one person wants to be the sole director. Hope this is clear. Thank you

bouicca21

Do you mean no one wants to be a director or that no one wants to take on the work of managing the freehold?  In a reasonably small set up like this surely every flat should have a say in the running of the freehold company - and if they don’t want to do the work they simply vote to outsource the management.  Then someone just needs to file the returns to Companies House, which isn’t difficult.

your service charge is very low … 

eddddy

MalcW said:

He states that even if we bring in an agent one of us still have to be a director?

Just to clarify, the set-up is probably as follows: A company owns the freehold. 8 of you each own a share in that company.

A company must have at lease one director - but if the problem is that nobody wants to take sole responsibility, there could also be 2, or 3, or 4 or more directors instead.

If you hire a good managing agent, that's experienced in dealing with set-ups like yours, they can probably do 99% of the work for you.

I've seen set-ups where the managing agents do everything, plus they tell the directors what they must do, and generally give the directors advice.

But there are also really bad managing agents. So you need to do some research to find a good one.

gwynlas

I have lived in a couple of small blocks, one where residents did all admin and another employed managing agent. Both required director sign off but obviously second more costly.