• Recovering A Share In Collective Enfranchisement Management Company

    By Guest on 04th May 2020

    10 years ago I bought a flat with a lease that expires in August 2081. I recently found out that the management company that owned the lease had been set up under “collective enfranchisement”. I also found out that a previous owner of my flat owns a share in the company but cannot be traced meaning I cannot purchase that share from her. There are 7 flats in the building and currently only 2 flats/owners have shares in the company. These 2 refuse to sell me a share. This sounds wrong to me as the idea of collective enfranchisement is that the majority of flats have a share. Is there a way for me to gain a share in the management company.

  • 2 Answers

    By NotaryExpress on 05/05/2020

    The previous owner should have transferred the share to you when you purchased the flat. You may wish to consider using a tracing agent such as Diem Legal to locate the previous owner so the transfer can be properly carried out. You may wish to review your lease to check you're not in breach for not having transferred the share (unlikely in a collective enfranchisement scenario but worth checking in any case). You may wish to speak with the law firm that acted on your purchase to ask whether they were aware it was a share of freehold and if so why they did not transfer the share over to you.

    www.notaryexpress.co.uk

  • By Guest on 05/05/2020

    Thank you NotaryExpress for the quick response. I will look into using a tracing agent but should that fail is there the option to start a new collective enfranchise with the owners of 3 other flats in the building who have also lost their shares in the management company.
    It seems morally wrong to me that a system that is designed to help the majority of flat owners can end up being controlled by a minority. I am trying to understand if is also legally wrong.
    Many thanks again.

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