As a member of the company you have the right to: attend AGMs and vote on proposals put forward by the company; hold office; contribute suggestions and, crucially, influence all decisions made. You do not have to have any active involvement unless you wish to although one or two leaseholders need to be elected chairman and company secretary. If you employ a manging agent like our affiliate JP Elliott they could undertake this role and the administration of the company on behalf of the leaseholders.

You can terminate your participation at any time but you will still have to pay the service charge as determined by the RTM company under the terms of your lease. Essentially this function, which previously had been run by the freeholder and his agents, will be taken over by the RTM company.

In other respects, your landlord and tenant relationship with the Freeholder will remain the same. Your lease with the Freeholder will remain unchanged and the ground rent payments will still need to be made. Often the RTM company will collect the ground rent on the freeholder’s instruction and pass it on. The RTM company will, however, take-over the service charges and, by deciding to join, you will have a voice and, if you sell the flat, so will your successors. There are government proposals to change how the leasehold system will be structured in the future which may affect future landlord and tenant relations and we will keep leaseholders informed of developments via this web page.

The Freeholder has the right to participate in the RTM company if he so desires. However, he will only have one shareand no voting rights In our experience most Freeholders choose not to become involved.

No. The beauty of the Right to Manage company is that once this company is formed you have total control over how you run the building, who you appoint to manage it, and how it is managed subject to the statutory provisions and the majority decision of your fellow leaseholders. We are confident that we can offer you an excellent service and ask you to try us. We find that even leaseholders with good experiences of landlord’s agents appreciate the peace of mind and free time they can enjoy if the property is professionally managed by an agent who is answerable to them.

Provided you comply with all the terms of your lease, by forming a RTM company the landlord’s involvement in the day-to-day running of the building will cease. However, you do have to comply with the decisions of the management company, pay the service charges and behave in a neighbourly manner. Nevertheless you will now have a voice and collective control of how your building is managed.

The Act makes special provisions where the freeholder lives on the premises or owns one or more of the leasehold flats. This is known as the resident landlord test. 

If the freeholder /Landlord  or an adult family member have lived in one of the flats as their  only or main home for the past 12 months, the building might not qualify for RTM. An adult family member includes spouse, civil partner, children, step-children or parents.

In this case, the leaseholders will not be able to take over the management of the building if:

• it’s not purpose-built (for example, it’s a converted house)
• it contains no more than 4 flats in total
• If the freeholder /landlord  or an adult family member have lived in one of the flats as their only or main home for the past 12 months, the building might not qualify for RTM. An adult family member includes spouse, civil partner, children, step-children or parents

It is important that the application is correctly drafted to  ensure all the grounds for qualification are covered .Your Right To Manage can assist to ensure the application is watertight.

A claim can be withdrawn any time before the RTM company acquires the right to manage, by serving a withdrawal notice to the people that were served the initial notice of claim as well as all qualifying tenants of the block. Additionally, where a counter notice is served and no application for determination or an application was made, then withdrawn, the claim will be deemed to have been withdrawn.

A further application can be made by the leaseholders at any time but there may be costs incurred in withdrawing.

If an existing right to manage company is wound up after they have secured the right, no new application can be made for 4 years.

They can  dispute the claim if they  think:

• the building does not qualify
• the RTM company does not comply with the legal requirements
• the RTM company members do not represent half the flats in the building.

They cannot dispute the claim for any other reason.

It is important that the application is correctly submitted to cover all these points.

If the members of the RTM company think the freeholder is wrong, the company must apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) within 2 months of the date of the counter-notice. The tribunal will then decide if the RTM company can manage the building.