Leasehold Enfranchisement

Leasehold Enfranchisement is the technical phrase given to the process by which tenants can buy their freehold or acquire a new extended lease from their landlords. The statutory regime which governs this area of law is complex and can be a minefield for the unwary. Accordingly, if you wish to extend your lease or acquire the freehold interest of your building, specialist advice is always recommended.

Wedlake Bell’s Leasehold Reform Group provides expert advice on all aspects of leasehold enfranchisement. Between its members, the Group has decades of experience in dealing with the following:

• Lease extensions of flats.
• Lease extensions of houses.
• Collective enfranchisement claims.
• Freehold enfranchisement of houses.
• Right to manage claims.

Our team also provides advice on how enfranchisement issues might affect development or investment opportunities so that clients are in a position to make informed decisions about how best to proceed.

Recent Experience

• Acting for a tenant in respect of its statutory lease extension claim which eventually settled with an agreed premium of £5,870,000.
• Acting for a tenant in respect of his lease extension claim of a flat with a complex title structure in a situation where we were instructed to act less than 2 weeks before the term of the lease fell below 80 years. We brought the new client on to the system and served the tenant’s notice within a matter of days to ensure that the client avoided having to pay a share of the marriage value that would have been payable if there had been less than 80 years of the lease still to run at the time the notice was served.
• Successfully acted for a landlord to defeat a collective enfranchisement claim made by the tenants on the basis that the tenants’ notice was invalid because it did not take into account the development value in the freehold title.
• Acting for a landlord of a high value residential block in Holland Park in relation to a right to manage claim by the tenants.