Leasehold Property law. Personally delivered.
Leasehold Property law. Personally delivered.
Windows, balconies, floor screed, the loft above. What is demised decides who repairs, who insures and whether you need consent — and it is rarely obvious.
Reviewed 25 July 2026
Almost every leasehold question turns on this, and it is the one most often answered wrongly.
Does the flat include the external walls, or only their internal surfaces? The windows, or only the glass? The frames? The floor screed, the joists beneath it, the ceiling void above? A balcony, a terrace, the loft, the airspace? Does the demise reach the mid-point of a party wall or the whole of it?
These are not academic distinctions. They determine who repairs and insures each part, whether your proposed works touch the landlord's property and therefore need something more than consent, and — on a purchase — whether the flat described in the lease is the flat you believe you are buying.
Parking spaces, bin and bike stores, garden areas and lofts are frequently not demised at all. A right to use a space is a very different thing from owning it: it may be qualified, it may be capable of relocation, and it does not become yours through thirty years of use. A buyer's solicitor will want to know which it is, and so should you.
Plans range from properly dimensioned and coloured to a photocopied sketch marked “for identification purposes only”. Which yours is affects how much weight it carries against the words of the lease, and where the two conflict the outcome is not always the one the picture suggests.
Add up what the leaseholders must repair and what the landlord must repair. If the two together do not account for the whole building, there is a gap — and gaps are discovered when the thing in the gap fails. A walkway, a boundary wall, a section of flat roof or a service pipe that nobody is obliged to maintain is a problem waiting for weather.
It is a straightforward thing to check, and much cheaper to establish now than during a dispute or a sale.
A lease and title review answers the question in writing, in plain language, for a fixed fee agreed at the outset.
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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.
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