Forfeiture of my lease

[twobitzblue]

Hi,

I am a landlord of a flat in a block of 12 and my tenant is causing anti social issues for the rest of the block of flats. I have asked the tenant to stop the anti social behaviour but so far nothing has changed.

The Management company for the block of flats has threatened me with forfieture of my ground lease if the issue doesnt get resolved soon, either by the tenant leaving or by stopping the anti-social behaviour.

I have two questions, what does this actually mean? As i own the property with a mortgage, what would be the consequences of them taking the lease back? Secondly, to confuse the issue, myself and several other owners of flats in the block purchased the lease hold of the flats when the previous owner had financial problems, so as part owner of the lease can they actually take it away from me?

I hope to resolve this WAY before they do try to take the lease off me but i would just like to know what im being threatened with to cover all bases.


Regards

[PaulF]

They are unlikely to make you forfeit the lease but they can make life difficult, not to mention expensive should they engage their lawyers. You have to take steps to try and obtain possession and you could use Ground 14 under S.8 but you need good evidence as it is Discretionary but you can serve the notice on the Tenant which gives him 14 days to modify his behaviour or suffer the consequences of being taken to court.

The other alternative is to try plod! or the Environmental Health Officer from your local authority, although the police are not usually interested until the chappy thumps somebody.

This might satisfy the freehold owner/and or the Management Company to show you are doing something.

[andydd]

Forfeiture can be used so that the freeholder can take possession of the flat, your lease must first have the S146 clause to allow this (most have).

Although it is rarely followed through to its ultimate goal, it could still be expensive for you, and you would have to ensure the breach is ended (an obvious example, chuck out the tenant !).

As for the mortgage company, well if followed through to completetion you would lose the property AND still owe the mortgage company (the company would know it would be unlikely to get its money back so they often step in at this stage and pay, for example, arrears of service charges and add it to your mortgage BUT clearly in cases like yours they have no control over your tenant).

So you have a share of the freehold ?. I assume the process still works the same and if forfeited the property would be held by the freehold company, I'm sure others could fill you in on this part.

So it is important that the breach (the anti social behaviour) is stopped but also to add nothing can be done untill the actual breach is admitted orn proven in court/lvt (which it may not be).

Andy