Leasehold Property law. Personally delivered.
Leasehold Property law. Personally delivered.
Most failed freehold purchases fail because the group did not hold together, not because the building was ineligible. Practical advice from London enfranchisement solicitors.
Reviewed 25 July 2026
In our experience the qualifying tests are the easy part. What defeats most claims is the group.
The statutory conditions are relatively generous. The premises must be a self-contained building or a vertically divided part of one, at least two thirds of the flats must be held by qualifying leaseholders, and non-residential floor area must not exceed 25%. Most blocks satisfy all three, and where a building fails it usually fails obviously and early.
It is the second half of the exercise — assembling and holding together a group of leaseholders willing to commit money — that accounts for almost every claim we see abandoned.
The first is waiting for unanimity. The Act requires the participation of qualifying leaseholders of at least half the flats in the building, not all of them. Weeks are routinely spent persuading a neighbour whose vote is not needed, while the leases continue to shorten.
The second is miscounting the majority. The threshold is measured against all the flats, and a leaseholder holding three or more flats in the building is not a qualifying leaseholder of any of them. Discovering that at week seven changes the arithmetic you have been working to.
The third is money. Participants who agreed enthusiastically in principle discover at the point of the deposit that they had not understood the figure, or cannot raise it. A group without funds on account is not a group.
The fourth is the participation agreement, or the absence of one. It should record who is participating, how the price and the costs are divided, what happens if somebody withdraws or sells, and how the company will be run. It should be signed before the initial notice is served. A group that will not commit on paper will not survive a six-month negotiation.
If no application is made to the Tribunal within six months of the counter-notice, the initial notice is deemed withdrawn. The participants become liable for the freeholder's reasonable costs, and no fresh claim can be brought for twelve months.
Liability for those costs is joint and several. A group that loses two participants and then misses the deadline leaves the remainder exposed for the whole amount. Diarising that date at the outset is not administration; it is the most expensive date in the process to miss.
Valuation first, so nobody is canvassing a building without knowing the likely price. Then a written explanation to every leaseholder with a deadline of your own, well inside the statutory one. Then the participation agreement, the company, and money on account — before the notice, not after it.
We act for leaseholder groups throughout London and can tell you at the outset whether your building qualifies and what the realistic cost will be.
This article reflects our understanding of the position on 25 July 2026 and is general information rather than legal advice. The law in this area is changing: take advice on your own circumstances before relying on it.
Tell us what has happened and what you would like to achieve, and we will tell you plainly where you stand, what it is likely to cost and how long it will take.
