The Letting Centre

Long lease (1)

Question: 435
I have been asked by one of my landlords to find a tenant for a flat that he owns in a block of mansion flats. It's quite a big flat and he thinks that it would accommodate up to 7 people. I already manage another flat in the same block and there is a prohibition in the lease for that flat for letting on a shared basis. What should I be doing in this situation?
Answer:
The first thing to do is to check the terms of the headlease. It is perfectly possible, if unlikely, for the terms of the lease for an individual flat to be different. Assuming that there is a prohibition on sharing you would need to check whether the freeholder had previously permitted this requirement to be breached. This would provide evidence that the freeholder had waived their rights to enforce this requirement by deciding not to take action against other leaseholders in the same situation. If you cannot find such evidence it would be unwise to continue as, not only would it be a breach of the headlease, but, under the provisions of the Housing Act 2004 it would require the property to be registered as a house in multiple occupation (HMO). (See Letting Factsheet No. 40 for further information)
References:	Pages:	Hyperlinks:
Letting Update Journal	July 2005 page 14	letting-update-journal.html
Letting Handbook	Chapter 16	letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html
Letting Factsheet No 40		factsheet-40

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