Get in touch
If you have any enquiries please contact any one of our specialist team who would be pleased to advise you on your options. You can also contact your lawyer individually from ‘Our People’ using the link below.
Freehold and Leasehold Enfranchisement Solicitors in Essex and Suffolk
Our team of Enfranchisement Solicitors in Essex and Suffolk can provide specialist legal advice with experience acting for both freeholders (including management companies) and leaseholders in statutory and informal lease extensions and in collective enfranchisement claims.
Lead Contacts
Support with all residential lease extensions & enfranchisement claims
If you own a flat with a long lease, letting the term of the lease run low can cause your flat to decrease in value. It can also make it more difficult to mortgage the flat. You can contact your landlord on an informal basis to see if they would be willing to extend your lease and if so whether you can agree the terms (such as, the payment, the additional years and the ground rent). Alternatively, if you have owned your flat for at least two years you may have a statutory right to extend the term of your lease by an additional 90 years and have the ground rent reduced to a peppercorn (nil). You will have to pay a premium for the lease extension, which is calculated by a surveyor who specialises in such valuations. The statutory route involves a specific process that you need to follow – this process has a strict timetable.
What is collective enfranchisement?
Collective enfranchisement is the process by which a group of leaseholders in a block of flats apply to purchase the freehold. In purchasing the freehold of their block, the participating leaseholders collectively become landlord of the block (as well as tenant of their own flat) and would take on the responsibilities of maintaining and insuring the building. The participating leaseholders can also agree to grant themselves an extension to the term of their leases. Enfranchisement is a complicated area of law and the statutory route involves a specific process that you need to follow – this process has a strict timetable.
Our specialist team can guide you through the process and ensure you meet the timetables.
Areas of specialism include
- Acting for a landlord or a leaseholder in relation to a lease extension for a flat, agreed on an informal basis
- Acting for a landlord or a leaseholder in relation to the leaseholder’s individual claim for a lease extension for a flat, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993
- Acting for a landlord or a group of leaseholders in relation to the leaseholders’ claim to purchase the freehold of a block of flats and appurtenant parts (collective enfranchisement), under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993
- Acting for a landlord or a leaseholder in relation to the leaseholder’s individual claim for a lease extension for a leasehold house, under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967
- Acting for a landlord or a leaseholder in relation to the leaseholder’s individual claim to purchase the freehold of a leasehold house, under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967
- Acting for a landlord or the leaseholders in relation to the landlord’s offer to sell the freehold to the leaseholders pursuant to the right of first refusal under the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987
