Get in on the Act

If you have a nightmare landlord, the Government's new leasehold reforms could bring you fresh hope. "Good landlords have nothing to fear from this legislation," says Housing Minister Lord Rooker. "It's the incompetent and bad landlords who will be put out of business."

Flat-dwellers are offered two escape routes from poor management and swingeing service charges. Relaxed qualification rules will make more leaseholders eligible to buy their freehold. Or they'll have the right to take over management of their block.

The legislation - part of the 2002 Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act - is long awaited and the Government has announced it is likely to be implemented on 30 September this year.

Lord Rooker, at a recent conference organised by the Leasehold Advisory Service (Lease), claimed the new laws would "make leasehold a more respectable form of tenure".

But, while the Act gives leaseholders more rights, they must go through more hoops to claim them. Professional help Owners of flats in blocks where there is a high level of subletting will be relieved to hear that the voting rules have been relaxed and the proportion of flats that have to vote to take on the freehold has been cut to 50 per cent.

However, there is now a set process every enfranchising block must follow. You must buy a Right to Enfranchise company (RTE): this is a company limited by guarantee with standard Memorandum and Articles laid down by the Act. And before the RTE can approach the freeholder, it must serve a Notice of Invitation to Participate on all eligible leaseholders, including those who have shown no interest in the freehold purchase.

The notice must contain a valuation of the freehold, and failure to serve it on even one leaseholder, or to offer a realistic valuation, can give a resistant landlord grounds to challenge your claim.

As well as needing time and energy to pursue the process, people in blocks face substantial upfront costs - £100-£250 for buying the company, valuer's and solicitor's fees and the landlord's costs.

Right to Manage is revolutionary. For the first time, long leaseholders can take over management without proving fault on the landlord's part or paying him compensation.

"It is empowering for tenants," says David Clarke, Professor of Law at Bristol University. But it, too, has its hurdles.