Q: We have just made the horrifying discovery that we have a small amount of Japanese Knotweed (JK) in our grounds. We hear that it is rife along railway embankments in the Bromley/S E London area and, although we understand that it spreads laterally under ground through its rhizomes and not through seeds, somehow a small […]
Q: My colleagues and I have recently formed a residentsâ association. Our constitution was drawn from the Department for Communities and Local Government proposal and we hope to gain RTA status shortly. We have six blocks of flats and 18 houses, in total 76 residences. One of the blocks of flats is social housing and […]
There are two matters we should value your advice on: 1) We have recently been offered the opportunity to purchase the freehold of the property.  This offer came through the agents for the Freeholder. No price has so far been mentioned. I have never heard of a flat owner holding a freehold. I donât know […]
Wooden Floors and Noise Our flats were erected in 2003. One of the conditions of the lease is that the floors be covered with carpet or other sound deadening material. The original buyers of one the first floor flats laid a wooden floor without putting a layer of insulation between it and the concrete floor. […]
Q: Our questions are regarding our potentially signing up a 3rd party managing agent to manage our block, specifically ref the insurance implications. We have not yet signed the contract. The relevant Terms of Business (contract) excerpts from that supplied by the agent currently read ⌠6.5 The Client is not required to arrange and […]
Q: Lease Variation Now that we have reached the 80 year threshold in the unexpired term of the leases, we are being asked by leaseholders (or their solicitors) about an extension to the term when carrying out a sale or re-mortgage. Our normal response to this is that because of the âShare of Freeholdâ, the […]
Q: Our Management Company is the freeholder of a block of 92 flats with leases of the residue of 999 years. We are at a very early stage in wishing to alter some aspects of our lease and need to know what proportion of our 92 leaseholders have to be in favour of amending the […]
Q: We now wish to move to the next stage of gaining recognition from our Freeholder and a constitution was adopted in a general meeting. At our AGM we elected a new committee. We now have 60 per cent of eligible leaseholders in full membership. Does our constitution (based on an ARMA model offered to […]
Q: We asked the freeholder and the superior leaseholder for recognition of our residentâs association on 10 February 2016. The freeholder stated that they would give it to their lawyers the next week and then would come back to us. I happened to see her yesterday and she said that she would chase her lawyer […]
Q: The âFire Safety in Purpose-Built Blocks of Flatsâ published by the Local Government Group in July 2011 suggests that a âpay meterâ should not be installed in a meter cupboard but in the flat and that the cupboard should always be locked. This issue is going to more important as âSmart metersâ will be […]
