Over a century ago, David Lloyd George, in his famous Limehouse Speech of 1909, said: -
“The landlord is a gentleman who does not earn his wealth... His sole function, his chief pride, is the stately consumption of wealth produced by others....You have got a system in the country which is not tolerated in any other country of the world...the system whereby landlords take advantage of the fact that they have got complete control over the land...You improve the building and year by year the value passes into the pockets of the landlord and at the end of sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety years the whole of it passes away to the pockets of a man who never spent a penny upon it.”
Almost a hundred years later and despite decades of landlord and tenant legislation the plight of leaseholders remained as forlorn as that of poor peasants that toiled the leasehold farms bequeathed to their lords and masters by royal grant following the introduction of the feudal system by William Conqueror back in the 11th century.
In 1997 fresh hope appeared when New Labour published a paper setting out its programme for further leasehold reform entitled ‘An End to Feudalism’. Under the sub-head ‘Efficient Estate Management’, the paper said the following:-
“Many leaseholders have over the years felt aggrieved at the lack of easy redress against freeholders or their managing agents who have failed to deliver a good quality service or have been charging unreasonably large fees... We therefore propose that a right to manage should be made available to leaseholders. This would enable leaseholders to take over the management of their estate or block of flats without the need to go through a tortuous and potentially expensive legal process. All that would be required would be clear evidence that at least 50 per cent of the leaseholders in the area concerned wish to take over its management. Such a scheme will not only cut out unnecessary red tape but also provide a proper incentive to landlords and their managing agents to deliver a high quality and cost effective service”.
These changes were implemented in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. Ending your landlord’s monopoly enables you to achieve improved standards at reduced cost and guarantees continuing value for the service charges you pay. As long as at least half of all leaseholders in a block agree to proceed the landlord cannot prevent the process. It is not necessary to prove fault by the landlord or its managing agent. It is not necessary to go to court or a tribunal and it is not necessary to pay your landlord compensation.