Ms R came to us after her Landlord offered to extend the Lease of her flat for £12,000. In fact the Landlord had only offered to extend the Lease by 50 years and also wanted to increase the ground rent. When we explained to the Landlord that he was not entitled to do this he withdrew the offer. We therefore served a formal Notice on the Landlord claiming an extension of the Lease. We also instructed a specialist surveyor who valued the Lease extension at £8,000. When faced with this information, the Landlord agreed to extend the Lease for 90 years for £8,000, and also agreed to reduce the ground rent to zero.
Mr L rang us to say his Landlord was willing to sell the freehold of his flat to him for just £960. The letter from the Landlord said this was a special, one-time deal which would only be available if Mr L sent in a non-refundable deposit of £300. We explained that it was not legally possible for Mr L to buy the freehold of his flat, but that he could acquire the freehold of the whole building jointly with the other flat owners. We advised Mr L to call a meeting with his neighbours at which they discovered that the letter from the Landlord was a scam to get £300 out of the residents for doing nothing. We are now advising Mr L and his neighbours on the correct procedure for them to buy the freehold collectively.
We were recently contacted by several residents of the same block of flats. They were worried that although no repairs or re-decoration had been carried out on their building for some time, their service charges had gone up for several years in a row. We attended a meeting of the residents where we were able to explain the possibilities including buying the freehold of the building, or setting up their own company to take over management of the building. The residents are currently considering their options, but are looking forward to being able to manage their building themselves.