Does a freehold Invalidate the terms of a leashold?

smoothieee

eddddy said:

smoothieee said:

and before all of this, we all use to be lease holders and we ''Paid Land rent'' to the landlord before we bought the freehold in Nov last year. 

I think you mean ground rent.

You (the leaseholders) are probably still liable to pay ground rent to the freehold company (unless you had lease variations to remove the ground rent).

But the freehold company probably doesn't bother asking for the ground rent.

I have summarised this together, if it's too waffly please assist, I want to send this so that my other neighbours whom are also the freeholders should start seeing the whats happening. please check.


Dear freeholders

I wonder what people's thoughts are about hiring a management company to manage the building.

Obviously, that will be an added cost for each of us, but it is important that the building is managed by people with a robust understanding of leases, in other words freeholds and the Law. As we're all contributing thousands of pounds to repair projects, it would be reassuring to have well managed and proper legal understanding.

To say that ''no one has a lease anymore from the date we became freeholders, that the Landlord and Tenant Act and that historic precedents are irrelevant'' is shocking.

• A Lease remains binding regardless of a freehold.
• Becoming a freeholder does not invalidate your lease. 
• Between us, there are 10 leasehold flats 
• There is one freehold building - which contains the 10 leasehold flats

And...

• Each flat is owned by a leaseholder - so there are 10 leaseholders (with one freehold)
• The freehold building is owned by a company - the company has 10 shareholders (all of us)

So...

• You own a leasehold flat (You and I)
• You also own a share in the company that owns the freehold (You and I)

The company that owns the freehold is the Landlord (all 10 of us), and you are 1 of 10 tenants, and.

• Both the landlord and the tenants are bound by the Landlord and Tenant Act
• Both the landlord and the tenant are bound by their individual leases

Your's faithfully,

EW

eddddy

Yep - sounds good.

smoothieee

Update to this issue, hoping to get some input. Thank you!

We completed the last repairs and I only paid my Apportionment of %11.15 as Opposed to an equal share and the freeholders panicked and asked the other flats to donate the shortfall to cover the repairs.

2 months ago we renewed building insurance and cost was apportioned by square footage and mine was %11.15.

Today, they have come up with a fence project requesting for £200 from each flat, note that it is two building under the freehold, my building has 5 flats and the other building has 5 flats and if I was go to by this apportionment, my building will account for £1000 and 11.15 of that comes up to £111.

The thing is the same issue all over again and I am writing to them one more that as shown below but I thought to first seek support here to make sure am not falling out of line, note that I pushed for insurance cost to be apportioned by square footage 2 years ago but the big flats keep pushing for these added cost to be split equally.

Below is the message that I want to send to them, what are your thoughts?

My commitment to any repairs remains 11.15% for any valid current and future repairs for my block.

It doesn't matter the cost of the repair, 100k or £1 bill, I will only commit to my apportionment of %11.15 and my previous email highlights this clearly.

I had also suggest that if you believe my actions are unreasonable, then we should go to a tribunal to settle this. 

Each of us has an apportionment, the small flat and the big flat and it's not up to anybody to make suggestions by vote or whatever means that requires that In pay more than %11.15 of my apportionment.

It also appears there's a knowledge gap between a lease and a freehold, a lease is king and having a freehold does not invalidate a lease, the legal situation has not changed and the apportionment of cost by square footage remains binding regardless of setting up a free hold company with XYZ directors. 

Best regards
W.

and btw this the Apportionment between both buildings are: 

Building 1 

Flat 1 =  24

Flat 2 = 22.89

Flat 3 = 19.84

Flat 4 = 20.61

Flat 5 = 12.18

Building 2 

Flat 1 = 26.08%

Flat 2= 23.58

Flat 2 = 20.87

Flat 4 =  18.32

Flat 5 = 11.15 (me)

eddddy

The answer is the same as previously.

Jointly buying the freehold doesn't change the terms of any leases. Your lease will explain how much you have to contribute towards the cost of the fence. 

Based on your previous posts it sounds like it's 11.5%. (Although it's possible for a lease to say you are responsible for x% of work costs on the building and y% of work costs on the garden.)


Depending on how confrontational you want to be, I guess you could reply with something like:

"My lease says I am responsible for contributing 11.5% towards maintenance and repair costs. As I have explained previously, collectively buying the freehold doesn't invalidate anyone's lease. It's worrying that you don't understand this. Perhaps you should take advice from a solicitor about this.

If you believe that I should pay more than 11.5% of the fence replacement cost, please explain which clauses in my lease say so."

smoothieee

eddddy said:

The answer is the same as previously.

Jointly buying the freehold doesn't change the terms of any leases. Your lease will explain how much you have to contribute towards the cost of the fence. 

Based on your previous posts it sounds like it's 11.5%. (Although it's possible for a lease to say are are responsible for x% of work costs on the building and y% of work costs on the garden.)


Depending on how confrontational you want to be, I guess you could reply with something like:

"My lease says I am responsible for contributing 11.5% towards maintenance and repair costs. As I have explained previously, collectively buying the freehold doesn't invalidate anyone's lease. It's worrying that you don't understand this. Perhaps you should take advice from a solicitor about this.

If you believe that I should pay more than 11.5% of the fence replacement cost, please explain which clauses in my lease say so."

Thank you for you support, it helps to understand that am not being a nuisance in this matter. 

RAS

Heck. Who is managing this shambles? Presumably you have a Right to Manage company? Who are the directors? 

What you might suggest is that the directors agree to host a seminar with all leaseholders by someone legally qualified to explain the situation?

smoothieee

UPDATE

I sent the above email few days ago and today have just observed that the guy that is pushing this agenda removed me from the WhatsApp group where we make decisions about repair's, it's kind of a Whatsapp group for all 10 freeholders within the building.

This makes no sense considering I live and own a property within the building and I should be aware of any decisions that that are being made regardless if I have an opinion or not, the only thing that have said on the group was to use the apportionment by square footage rather than paying the same as a bigger flat.

Says for example, next month they decide to change the lock on the front door to the building, how will know, I find it a disturbing, does that make sense?