I was delighted to speak at this RICS event, in London on the subject of the recent Upper Tribunal decision in Queen Court and also the question of airspace leases generally.
For more information on the tropics a discussed see the article that appears at www.leaseholdreformnews.com
The question of roof top development is certainly a hot topic following the case of Queen Court.
I was delighted to be asked to speak by News on the Block at their Leasehold 2019 event on the subject of Commonhold.
This is of course highly topical following on from the Law Commission’s Consultation – ‘reinvigorating Commonhold: the alternative to leasehold home ownership’ which closed on 10th March 2018.
There are a number of issues with Commonhold which will need to be addressed if it is to work and these are quite technical in nature. Of these the largest in my view is the position concerning insolvency. However, there are other concerns around how estate costs are split in larger developments and also how provisions in the Commonhold commmunity statement can be amended.
A description of some of the key issues appear in the selected slides below.
Whilst Commonhold has been on the statute books since July 2004, there are more books written about it than actual developments.
What the Law Commission Consultation seeks to address is are these known issues, which if solved may encourage the use of Commonhold as a new species of land tenure and a viable alternative to leasehold for flats and other shared management structures.
Mark Chick
Delighted to be published in the October edition of New Law Journal on the subject of the Law Commission’s proposals for reform of the law relating to enfranchisement
See https://www.newlawjournal.co.uk
And
https://www.bishopandsewell.co.uk/2018/10/29/all-change-in-residential-leasehold/
Panel debate at the ARMA conference 2018
A summary of some of the key points from this debate appears below:
Professor Nick Hopkins – we are putting forward options for reform on valuation rather than proposals – unlike in the other areas.
Debra Yudolph gives the detail from the developer perspective- the issue of commonhold and handover to the association – the issue is loss of control.
How to make the marriage between the leaseholder and the freeholder work? Graham Donaldson – says that lots of people only own for say 5 years – a developer standpoint – length of tenure should drive your say in management.
Graham compares with the Nolan Principles of how one should behave – we need people to be selfless objective and fully accountable.. a key point for all RMC co and commonhold directors.
Any code needs to apply to all – 3rd party managers, freehold owners, managing agents.
More issues are being resolved via company law.
Nick Hopkins says that with mixed use and commonhold there needs to be a discussion on developer rights – this is a known issue.
We won’t be saying that commonhold should always be used. We don’t want to make it compulsory – we just want to make sure that where it is used that it works.
The Nolan principles may be relevant.
Fixing the ground rent has to balance the autonomy that they may of may not have – says Debra Yudolph. The law Commission needs to look at this as there is a large responsibility on the reversionary owner. The ground rent compensates for this.