For Better, For Worse

Getting together with your fellow leaseholders to acquire the freehold interest in your building

Instinctively an attractive proposition which panders to the estate agent's mantra of "share of freehold". Indeed the incentives for making a statutory claim to acquire your freehold pursuant to the Leasehold, Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 are many. These include:

• Gaining control over the management and maintenance of the building and the level of service charges.
• Granting 999 year leases of your flats at a peppercorn rent, and so removing existing (and sometimes onerous) ground rents, noting of course that the landlord is entitled to be compensated for loss of ground rent in the price you pay for the freehold.