Leaseholder AWOL

Mildreds_Earrings

Hello there, we are the freeholders of a small building with four leaseholders. We live on the ground floor and we're also leaseholders. 

Three leaseholders very much want needed repairs and maintenance carried out to the property and as the freeholder, I am prepared to serve Section 20 Consultation Notices, so that this is done officially. However the 4th leaseholder none of us has ever met and his 'friend' represents him. His friend lives far away and very rarely visits the property, as he rents the property out via a Lettings Agent. The friend said the leaseholder whom he represents (allegedly) does not want any work carried out (surprise surprise) and he won't provide the leaseholders contact details, so we are left in limbo.

Shall we just serve S20 Notices to the property address, in the leaseholder's name, even though we have no idea where he actually lives?

I am fairly confident in serving the S20 Notices but I am loathe to hire a Solicitor to sort this out, as the major works will be expensive enough and it's not fair to pass on legal costs to the three leaseholders who live there, who very much want the works done. 

Any help would be much appreciated, thank you. 

silvercar

For £3 you could download the deeds to the leasehold from Land Registry and see if there is an address. Or you could write to the letting agent and request they forward to the lease holder.

propertyrental

What address has the leaseholder in question provided to you?
The property address or somewhere else (eg c/o the friend)?
Where do you send demands for ground rent?
Where do you send demands for annual service charges?
This is no different. You serve to the address you hold.

The friend is an irrelevance unless properly appointed.

If the lease holder does not respond that is not your problem. Get the work done, send the demand for payment, and if payment is not forthcoming follow the proper procedure (ultimately to take back the lease).

Mildreds_Earrings

silvercar said:

For £3 you could download the deeds to the leasehold from Land Registry and see if there is an address. Or you could write to the letting agent and request they forward to the lease holder.

Thanks for your response. We obtained Land Registry documents last week to ensure the leaseholder is still the proprietor and he is. However, there is no address. When we contacted the Lettings Agent, they passed our details onto the friend, who then contacted us! 

Mildreds_Earrings

propertyrental said:

What address has the leaseholder in question provided to you?
The property address or somewhere else (eg c/o the friend)?
Where do you send demands for ground rent?
Where do you send demands for annual service charges?
This is no different. You serve to the address you hold.

The friend is an irrelevance unless properly appointed.

If the lease holder does not respond that is not your problem. Get the work done, send the demand for payment, and if payment is not forthcoming follow the proper procedure (ultimately to take back the lease).

Thanks for your response. We have never served ground rent notices because it's only £3 (no excuse, we know) but we have only been freeholders for four years, so we will serve backdated Notices this year, just to get our paperwork in order. 

Any correspondence goes to the friend's address. The friend wants us to address letters to him but we never do. We address correspondence to the proprietor but at the friend's address. I have lost count how many times we've asked for the proprietor's contact details.

We will serve S20 Notices to the property address, thank you. We wanted to do that anyway but worried about legal recourse if proprietor or his friend suddenly turns up and says we never received the Notices (sigh). 

eddddy

propertyrental said:

If the lease holder does not respond that is not your problem. Get the work done, send the demand for payment, and if payment is not forthcoming follow the proper procedure (ultimately to take back the lease).

That's not the best order to do things - it's risky. Because....

If the leaseholder takes you to tribunal and it's decided that the s20 is invalid (e.g. because it was sent to the wrong address, or some other reason), you can only claim £250 from that leaseholder.

Therefore, many freeholders take a safer route and do it like this:

• Do the s20 consultation

• Send out the service charge demands before the work starts

• Only start the work when everyone has agreed to pay, and actually paid the service charge

If one  of the leaseholders refuses to pay the service charge demand...

• Start legal action against them - it will probably end up at a tribunal

• If the tribunal agree that you've done the s20 correctly and the demand is valid - you can start the process of repossessing their flat (which will probably make them pay-up.)

• If the tribunal say that the s20 is invalid - you can start the s20 process again (and do it properly) - and once it's done properly, you won't be limited to claiming only £250

Mildreds_Earrings

Oh my giddy aunt @eddddy
All this because a leaseholder is AWOL! The rest of the leaseholders, including myself, can see the building needs repairs. It's the one who doesn't even flamin live here but who happily rents his property out at £1k per month, who is the problem!!!
Thanks ever so for your help, we will take your advice 😒

eddddy

Mildreds_Earrings said:

Oh my giddy aunt @eddddy
All this because a leaseholder is AWOL! The rest of the leaseholders, including myself, can see the building needs repairs. It's the one who doesn't even flamin live here but who happily rents his property out at £1k per month, who is the problem!!!
Thanks ever so for your help, we will take your advice 😒

Well, it's because... as far as the law is concerned, you are a landlord and the leaseholder is your tenant. As a landlord, you have to work around a lot of tenant protection legislation.

In the 'bad old days', rogue freeholders might have massively ripped-off leaseholders - randomly charging them huge amounts of money for all sorts of unnecessary work.  So now freeholders have to jump through lots of hoops before they can charge leaseholders.


TBH, as a freeholder/landlord, maybe you should get up to speed with all the leaseholder/tenant protection legislation.

If one of your leaseholders turns out to understand leaseholder protection legislation better than you, they might decide to run circles around you, and you could lose a chunk of money.