Leasehold Enfranchisement

Rooks Rider Solicitors LLP has a team specially dedicated to dealing with Leasehold Enfranchisement, and has won awards for the work undertaken in this niche area of practice.

The team, which also comprises Real Estate and Dispute Resolution specialists, receives instructions via referrals, as well as through our association with the Leasehold Advisory Group and the Federation of Private Residents.

Rooks Rider Solicitors was named ‘Solicitors Firm of the Year 2013’ at the Enfranchisement and Right To Manage Awards, one of the most prestigious awards recognising professional excellence in leasehold enfranchisement work.

Leasehold Enfranchisement is the process whereby tenants of a residential property can:

• Acquire the freehold to their house or to their flats collectively
• Take over the management of the building of which their flat forms part, or
• In individual cases, extend their leases by 90 years.

The specialist Leasehold Enfranchisement team at Rooks Rider Solicitors acts for:

• Leaseholders, principally high net worth individuals, helping them to acquire their freeholds and obtain lease extensions
• Landlords, where their tenants have made such applications
• We are also regularly asked by other law firms to advise on an agency basis, with frequent referrals from law firms who don’t have enfranchisement specialists.

Our expertise is underscored by the fact that we regularly advise other law firms on an agency basis and receive referrals from other law firms who lack enfranchisement specialists.

Benefits to Leasehold Enfranchisement include:

• By collectively, with other flat owners, buying the freehold of your block, you may increase the value of your property
• You are also likely to have greater control over any expenditure on, or modifications made to the property
• Your management control is increased, and
• You will possibly have lower management charges.

A selection of recent Leasehold Enfranchisement transactions include:

• Individual lease extensions for a block of 104 flats on the Eyre Estate
• Advising on an application to purchase from the Crown Estate, a block of 43 flats and 10 ‘live work’ units in East London
• Purchase of a block of 10 flats in East London (landlord missing)
• An application to purchase the freehold of a block of 16 flats in Mayfair
• A freehold purchase of 7 flats in Pimlico
• Purchase of a block of 16 flats from the Sloane Estate
• Acting for the Residents’ Association on the purchase from a Housing Association of a block of 62 flats in Wapping
• Acting on the purchase of the freehold of a block of 85 flats in SW1