13. Right to Manage

Leasehold ‘managing agents’ have the power to spend money at whim. They are not regulated and work for a freeholder who has only a financial interest in the leases.

Leasehold disputes are usually due to too much maintenance or too little. ‘Giving’ lessees the power to manage their own leaseholds deals with the problem on a superficial level.

The issue of fees for alterations, lease extensions, permissions, disputes with the freeholder to whom breaches of the lease must still be reported, remain.



The Right to Manage has been offered as a ‘jewel’ in the crown of leasehold reform. In fact it is a cynical piece of legislation. It may alleviate initial problems of management but it maintains the leasehold system of separate ownership. It channels the real profit to the freeholder, this time relieving them of the onerous task of day to day management which the leaseholders have formed a company to do for nothing! Meanwhile the lease get shorter and yearly more expensive to buy back, while the leaseholder carries out the freeholders’ task for nothing.