I was delighted to be quoted in the Law Society Gazette in a feature article entitled ‘Home Truths’ – which is a round-up of a number of things going on in housing and property law at the moment. To read the article click on the link below and/ or see the copy appearing below.

https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=Law%20Society%20Gazette&edid=78954e93-d7f4-41c9-9ca9-179553720ea9

there is a lot going on in housing and property law generally, from the work being done to look at Commonhold and the proposed reforms to the Enfranchisement regime. That is to say nothing of the major commitments to the serious issues posed by cladding and the attempts by Government to ‘fix’ this, which are currently playing out.

In addition, we have the suggestion of changes to the ‘no fault’ ending of Assured Shorthold Tenancies, and a number of other pressing issues concerning social housing.

If you have a query concerning leasehold property, then please get in contact by emailing leasehold@bishopandsewell.co.uk

Next week’s ALEP Spring Lecture will see industry professionals discuss the question of the deferment rate in enfranchisement calculations and the scope for a revision of this based on the recent decision in Llangewydd Court.

I am running the panel session at the end of this event and I expect that we will be discussing a number of real world implications based on the charing economic data and also looking at the recent Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 and its potential ramifications for the world of leasehold reform and its impact on freehold valuations

I was delighted to chair the MBL Enfranchisement Conference 2022 this week. This was a well attended online CPD event run by MBL Seminars for professionals working in this area.

I spoke on ‘Commonhold: The Scope for Reform’ which is of course a hot topic with the Commonhold Council in full swing. I know from other work that DLUHC are fully committed to making Commonhold work and as the Law Commission and other commentators have shown there is a lot of ground to cover to make Commonhold ‘fit for purpose.’

I was also delighted to be joined by fellow speakers, Mark Loveday, Richard Murphy, Sarah Thompson-Copsey and Stephen Desmond.

At our recent conference we discussed the Law Commission’s proposals for conversion to commonhold and in particular what may happen in relation to enfranchisement when and if it becomes the norm. There are a number of proposals around conversion and these include reducing the threshold for this from 100% (as it currently is), to as low as 50% to mirror the position in an enfranchisement claim.

This then leads on to an interesting discussion about what might happen to leaseholders in such a block that don’t vote to take part in the conversion. Will they be given a commonhold unit to replace their leasehold flat – even if they don’t want it? There is scope for some kind of human rights discussion around that point alone.

This says nothing of what might happen to those with short leases in a conversion situation – particularly, as has been suggested by the Law Commission, if conversion to a commonhold were to be made the mandatory end product from an enfranchisement claim.

In those cases, unless a workable solution is found, a flat with a short lease that did not take part (ie pay) for the freehold could be ‘gifted’ a solution to their problem – a freehold unit without having to underwrite any of the costs.

There are some solutions that we have suggested around this; the main one being that ‘legacy’ long leasehold interests must be allowed to continue in commonhold.

Whilst this might sound like a common sense approach it is not clear that government will go down this route and ALEP members will be very vocal in insisting upon this to avoid an unworkable outcomes as and when commonhold is reintroduced to the legal landscape.’

Mark Chick

20.10.2021