Minister David Lammy thinks the government has done its job in introducing commonhold tenure, and seeks to transfer responsibility for making it work to solicitors and others (see [2004] Gazette, 30 September, 16).


Commonhold tenure will never take hold in the restricted form that it has been introduced. Firstly, existing blocks of flats cannot be transferred to commonhold unless each and every party with an interest in that block agrees to the transfer. This includes not just the landlord and all the leaseholders, but all the mortgage lenders as well. That is why few such transfers will take place.


Secondly, developers will prefer to continue to sell on a leasehold basis since this will be more profitable for them than commonhold. By retaining the freehold interest, a block of flats will become progressively more valuable to them as the leases get shorter. The government itself has forecast that only a quarter of new flat developments will be commonhold. Even that could prove optimistic.


The result is that the discredited leasehold system will remain the predominant form of tenure for flat ownership for many years to come.



Nigel Wilkins, chairman, Campaign for the Abolition of Residential Leasehold, London