Commonhold

Last updated

Commonhold is a system of property ownership in England and Wales. It involves the indefinite freehold tenure of part of a multi-occupancy building (typically a flat) with shared ownership of and responsibility for common areas and services. It has features of the strata title and the condominium systems, which exist in Australia and the United States respectively. It was introduced by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 as an alternative to leasehold, and was the first new type of legal estate to be introduced in English law since 1925. [1]

An important difference between commonholds and leaseholds (leases) is that a commonhold is indefinite in time, unlike a leasehold which is only granted for a fixed period of time (the term). As a consequence, a commonhold title is not a depreciating asset, whereas leaseholds lose value as the end of their term ( term of years or in extraneous documents sometimes existence) approaches. [2]

In the years since the 2002 Act became law, only a handful of commonholds have been registered, whilst hundreds of thousands of long leases have been granted during the same period. As of 3 June 2009, there were 12 commonhold residential developments comprising 97 units (homes) in England and one commonhold residential development comprising 30 units (homes) in Wales. [3]

Where freehold houses should be subjected to positive covenants which force their owners to contribute to communal maintenance, such as in garden squares, as few such duties can attach to freeholds, access to such areas can be physically restricted to those who own that area, commonly through a residents' management company. Such a company, if the land was owned by the original landlord such as a developer, may come into the hands of the lessees (tenants) through a statutory process leading to legal agreements or a court order which creates a limited liability right to manage (also known as an RTM) company. A common alternative has been rentcharges where truly necessary services or contributions need to be made which cannot devolve to a local authority or statutory undertaker through adoption.

See also

Related Research Articles

In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time under common law, whereas the highest possible form of ownership is a "fee simple absolute," which is without limitations on the land's use.

In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". The person who will take over the rights upon death is said to have a "remainder" interest and is known as a "remainderman".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Condominium</span> Form of ownership of real property

A condominium is an ownership regime in which a building is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owners. These individual units are surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned and managed by the owners of the units. The term can be applied to the building or complex itself, and is sometimes applied to individual units. The term "condominium" is mostly used in the US and Canada, but similar arrangements are used in many other countries under different names.

An estate in land is, in the law of England and Wales, an interest in real property that is or may become possessory. It is a type of personal property and encompasses land ownership, rental and other arrangements that give people the right to use land. This is distinct from sovereignty over the land, which includes the right to government and taxation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lease</span> Contractual agreement in which an assets owner lets someone else use it in exchange for payment

A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user to pay the owner for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment are also leased. Basically a lease agreement is a contract between two parties: the lessor and the lessee. The lessor is the legal owner of the asset, while the lessee obtains the right to use the asset in return for regular rental payments. The lessee also agrees to abide by various conditions regarding their use of the property or equipment. For example, a person leasing a car may agree to the condition that the car will only be used for personal use.

A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.

Strata title is a form of ownership and housing tenure devised for multi-level apartment blocks and horizontal subdivisions with shared areas. The word "strata" refers to apartments being on different levels.

As a legal term, ground rent specifically refers to regular payments made by a holder of a leasehold property to the freeholder or a superior leaseholder, as required under a lease. In this sense, a ground rent is created when a freehold piece of land is sold on a long lease or leases. The ground rent provides an income for the landowner. In economics, ground rent is a form of economic rent meaning all value accruing to titleholders as a result of the exclusive ownership of title privilege to location.

A profit, in the law of real property, is a nonpossessory interest in land similar to the better-known easement, which gives the holder the right to take natural resources such as petroleum, minerals, timber, and wild game from the land of another. Indeed, because of the necessity of allowing access to the land so that resources may be gathered, every profit contains an implied easement for the owner of the profit to enter the other party's land for the purpose of collecting the resources permitted by the profit.

A leasehold valuation tribunal (LVT) was a statutory tribunal in England which determined various types of landlord and tenant dispute involving residential property in the private sector. An LVT consisted of a panel of three; one with a background in property law ; one with a background in property valuation generally a qualified surveyor; and a layman, although some decisions of an LVT were decided by a single member. LVTs were non-departmental public bodies.

In England and Wales, the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 provides a right for leaseholders to change the appointment of the management of their building to another provider, by setting up a special company to take over from the freeholder those rights of appointment of management of the building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 (c.15) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced commonhold, a new way of owning land similar to the Australian strata title or the American condominium, into English and Welsh law. Part 1 deals with commonhold and part 2 deals with leasehold reform. Some supplementary material is covered in part 3.

A freehold, in common law jurisdictions such as England and Wales, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and twenty states in the United States, is the common mode of ownership of real property, or land, and all immovable structures attached to such land.

Building management is a discipline that comes under the umbrella of facility management. Hard services usually relate to physical, structural services such as fire alarm systems, lifts, and so on whereas soft services allude to cleaning, landscaping, security, and suchlike human-sourced services.

Ius in re, or jus in re, under civil law, more commonly referred to as a real right or right in rem, is a right in property, known as an interest under common law. A real right vests in a person with respect to property, inherent in his relation to it, and is good against the world. The primary real right is ownership (dominium). Whether possession (possessio) is recognized as a real right, or merely as a source of certain powers and actions, depends on the legal system at hand. Subordinate or limited real rights generally refer to encumbrances, rights of use and security interests. The term right in rem is derived from the action given to its holder, an actio in rem. In Latin grammar the action against the thing demands a fourth case. The underlying right itself, ius in re, has a fifth case, as the right rests on, or burdens, the thing. By mistake the common law terminology now uses the fourth case for describing the right itself. Compare jus ad rem.

Marriage value, also called synergistic value, is a concept in property valuation. It is defined by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as "an additional element of value created by the combination of two or more assets or interests where the combined value is more than the sum of the separate values".

<i>Kent v Kavanagh</i>

Kent v Kavanagh[2006] EWCA Civ 162 is an English land law case, concerning easements. It concerns physically shared amenities with physically divided ownership as to the land or surface on which they rest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leasehold Reform Act 1967</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 is an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, which concerns English land law and compulsory purchase. A government bill, the law remains largely intact. It was passed by both Houses and had been tabled by ministers of the Labour government, 1964–1970.

<i>James v United Kingdom</i>

James v United Kingdom [1986] is an English land law case, concerning tenants' (lessees') statutory right to enfranchise a home from their freeholder and whether specifically that right, leasehold enfranchisement, infringes the freeholder's human rights in property without being in a valid public interest.

Fleecehold refers to the inclusion of onerous terms in the deeds of a freehold property or the lease of a leasehold property in the United Kingdom. The practice of fleecehold is known to be increasing in the UK, according to the results of FOI requests to the Land Registry. At a minimum, tens of thousands of houses are affected, but it is unknown how quickly the number is increasing. There have been several proposals by elected officials and campaign groups to abolish or mitigate the practice, and it has been questioned in Parliament and the devolved assemblies.

References

  1. Neville, Paul (3 October 2005). "Commonhold property ownership explained". BBC News Online .
  2. Loveday, Mark (15 May 2009). "Brief encounter: commonhold property". The Times .
  3. House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Michael Wills Written Questions, 9 June 2009 col. 792W Commonhold