Am I unreasonable for thinking of pulling out (leasehold flat)?

ThisIsWeird

Democracy is the worst form of governance, except for all the others.
With apologies...

BuyLon

gm0 said:

Also.  Consider why this has stalled as paperwork. 

It requires a significant expense and SoF director effort - and legal costs to fix all the leases.  For the sake of argument - let's call it >£1000 each in legal support and admin costs.  Ignoring what you pay the share of freehold.  If you can get cheap and good legal help more power to you.

And consider leasehold and common hold reforms coming down the track.  How many times do we want to commission new legal works to sort out paperwork to a "new template".  More money. Possibly.

Shall we in fact wait for new legislation and colouring in to actually land.    And see if it is helpful or necessary to update things.  And do it once.  A lot of people would find that a ready excuse to kick the ball down the pitch.

Until a genuine "not mortgageable" happens.  The incentives are flimsy.  And one ultra cautious solicitor swallow (of unknown experience level with leasehold) doesn't make a summer.

What is the downside of not doing it in the current share of freehold arrangement.  If the answer is "not much" actually.  Nobody wants the legal bill.  To then be told they need to do it again.  Or the work. The explaining and wheedling of the fearful.  (As you probably want to do everyone not only some of the leases and share of freehold owners).

And when you open up leases.  Or SoF company articles to reform them. 

Your SoF owners will have ALL their other pet issues they want to raise which SHOULD of course feature in "new" extended leases.  Allowing or banning things:  BTL. Pet policy. AirBnB use case. Fitment of green energy kit etc. etc. etc.  Rider agreements that need to be signed which provide penalties between "nothing" and "lease forfeiture" in return for permission to do x/y/z thing which can cause nuisances.  Your split of owner occupiers and landlords will create an interesting dynamic unique to you.

It can easily become a scramble where fixing anything demands compromises and fixing everything and the community doesn't REALLY agree across all those topics. 

Sticking through changes on a bare majority - may be correct to the articles but you may still have a lot of !!!!!! off and unco-operative from now on - neighbours who extract their pound of flesh - later.  Even if the articles say simple majority.  They will be offended and feel abused.   But 100% consensus and nicey nicey can be really difficult to achieve.  

Or you just do all the work and expense for a bare extension.  No changes to existing obligations or restrictions.
And it's (arguably) a missed opportunity. 

Or you try - which leads to more work to get ALL the people - meeting attenders and not - to vote on a menu of changes before presenting new leases based on voting outcomes.

And say you do that - and you agree "pets".  But someone says - nope - still don't agree - not in my existing lease. No pets.  Allergies.  Yes I was outvoted but I'm not signing.  Here is my legal letter - freeholder - please enforce the existing restriction for the remaining term of my lease.  Leasehold hat. Not freehold owner hat.

Ah democracy.  The best of all systems.

It's fine - better than the don't care remote owner and agent.  But it has its own dynamics.

Ugh. It does indeed. Well I guess I am just hoping for the best at this point.

ThisIsWeird

Be clear - having a part share of the FH is the best option by a country mile.