Fleecehold

Last updated

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. [1] 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 [2] and campaign groups [3] to abolish or mitigate the practice, and it has been questioned in Parliament and the devolved assemblies. [4]

Contents

A fleecehold property is usually taken to mean one that has deeds or a lease that allow a management company to impose a service charge on the householder. The service charge means that a payment must be made to the management company in return for the company performing certain items of maintenance on common land or amenities where the property is situated. This practice has obvious advantages for the local authority and property developer. The local authority does not need to adopt common land and amenities on the estate and does not bear the cost or responsibility for their upkeep. The developer in turn does not need to build any of these amenities (such as roads, pathways, flowerbeds and drainage systems) to the standards that local authorities require for them to be adopted. The owners of fleecehold properties still have to pay the full council tax on their property even though they have to additionally pay a private company to maintain the estate's amenities.

Leasehold

Leaseholders have some statutory rights defined in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 which can prevent the worst practices of fleecehold. For example, leaseholders have the right to see all invoices and receipts for work which the management company has undertaken and recharged to the leaseholders. They may also challenge the reasonableness of charges at the First Tier Tribunal. However, such action requires meticulous attention from leaseholders to build their case, and many simply do not have the time and skills required to do this.

Freehold

In relation to estate charges, freeholders are legally in a more disadvantageous position than leaseholders. [5] Freeholders are not covered by the service charge provisions in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and have no statutory rights to see any documentary evidence relating to the service charge or to challenge the reasonableness of the service charge. Because the agreements are imposed by covenants in their deeds, they are not covered by consumer law and in many cases the management company is named in their deeds so there is no option to use a different company for maintenance. Their only recourse is to make or defend a claim in court, however because freeholders have no rights to see any invoices etc. it can be extremely hard to build a case.

Also, covenants in the property deeds usually allow the management company to claim legal expenses as part of the service charge so the management company actually has nothing to lose by going to court (their legal costs can always be reclaimed through the service charge) and they will often employ expensive legal professionals. Even if the freeholder wins their case they will pay the legal costs of the management company through the service charge.

Finally, the deeds of a freehold property may make reference to an estate rentcharge on the property which allows the management company to undertake extremely draconian measures (possibly leading to the management company taking possession of the property) if the service charge is not paid. The threat of losing their house for not paying a service charge is enough to deter many freeholders from contesting the service charge.

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.

This aims to be a complete list of the articles on real estate.

A homeowner association, or a homeowner community, is a private association-like entity in the United States, Canada, and certain other countries often formed either ipso jure in a building with multiple owner-occupancies, or by a real estate developer for the purpose of marketing, managing, and selling homes and lots in a residential subdivision. The developer will typically transfer control of the association to the homeowners after selling a predetermined number of lots.

<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.

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.

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.

Commonhold is a system of property ownership in England and Wales. It involves the indefinite freehold tenure of part of a multi-occupancy building 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.

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 covenant, in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a seal. Because the presence of a seal indicated an unusual solemnity in the promises made in a covenant, the common law would enforce a covenant even in the absence of consideration. In United States contract law, an implied covenant of good faith is presumed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Registration Act 2002</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Land Registration Act 2002 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which repealed and replaced previous legislation governing land registration, in particular the Land Registration Act 1925, which governed an earlier, though similar, system. The Act, together with the Land Registration Rules, regulates the role and practice of HM Land Registry.

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 English land law, a rentcharge is an annual sum paid by the owner of freehold land (terre-tenant) to the owner of the rentcharge (rentcharger), a person who need have no other legal interest in the land.

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">Law of Property Act 1925</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Law of Property Act 1925 is a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament. It forms part of an interrelated programme of legislation introduced by Lord Chancellor Lord Birkenhead between 1922 and 1925. The programme was intended to modernise the English law of real property. The Act deals principally with the transfer of freehold or leasehold land by deed.

A freehold, in common law jurisdictions such as England and Wales, Australia, Canada and Ireland, 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.

Rates are a tax on property in the United Kingdom used to fund local government. Business rates are collected throughout the United Kingdom. Domestic rates are collected in Northern Ireland and were collected in England and Wales before 1990 and in Scotland before 1989.

<i>Halsall v Brizell</i>

Halsall v Brizell [1957] Ch 169 is an English land law case, concerning the enforceability of a positive covenant, that is required positive obligations, in this case the obligation to pay money for upkeep and repair.

Yiannakis Theophani "John" Christodoulou is a Monaco-based British billionaire property developer, the owner of Yianis Group, a privately held company with a portfolio of residential, hotel, retail and leisure properties in the UK and Europe. His Yianis Group employs over 7,000 people in the UK alone. Through Yianis Group, Christodoulou is reportedly one of England's biggest freeholder landlords.

References

  1. Scoffin, Harry (26 November 2019). "Developers can now seize FREEHOLD homes, reports BBC R4 MoneyBox in shocking expose of 'fleecehold'". Leasehold Knowledge Partnership.
  2. "House of Commons Library: Freeholders' estate and service charges". UK Parliament. 20 January 2021.
  3. "Petition the government". Home Owners Rights Network UK. 8 September 2016.
  4. David, Hefin (27 September 2018). "Fleecehold scandal". YouTube .
  5. Wilson, Wendy (15 October 2020). "House of Commons Library Briefing Paper: Freehold Houses: Estate charges". UK Parliament.