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Further to previous, I have some retired friends who live in a block of 17 flats. They are enfranchised, 900 years plus leases, do the managing themselves. Each flat has a share in their RTM company, pay about £5 per year nominal ground rent to the RTM company. This share passes to any new owner. They are getting on a bit, and chasing recalcitrant owners for service charges is difficult. I said they could employ an agent to do everything although then the service charge would go up a bit to cover the agent's costs.
Our situation is more difficult, we are more than 30 flats, the freeholder and managing agent are the same. Rapidly rising service charges in recent years and poor work. Looked at RTM and enfranchisement. RTM on its own does not give us enough freedom from the freeholder, enfranchisement too expensive at the moment so can't get enough votes for it. Both the RTM process, and enfranchisement process put people off because off expense, and it looks complicated to the ordinary person. It feels like we could spend a lot of money, especially with enfranchisement, and not get the result we want. At the moment, the leaseholders who want to enfranchise have to buy all of the freehold, not their majority share. I know this aspect is under review. I would also like to see a majority of those leaseholders who bother to vote be able to do RTM, or enfranchisement, rather than a majority of the whole building. And an individual leaseholder be able to buy their share of the freehold at any time, or do a reasonable cost lease extension.
Leasehold is seen as a toxic brand because of recent abuses. We are outside of London, and the value of our flats has fallen substantially in the last few years. I regret buying leasehold, like many others.