Your lease is the most important document relating to your home – it is a legal contract which sets out our respective rights and responsibilities, what you are required to do as a homeowner and what you can expect from us, what you are required to pay and when, and when you need our consent to do something.

If you need help understanding what’s in your lease then you should speak to your solicitor, or you can find some advice of the Leasehold Advisory Service website (www.lease-advice.org).

As part of your payments to us you’ll usually be paying a service charge, which is your contribution towards the maintenance and upkeep of the communal areas, the structure of the building if you own a flat, and a buildings insurance premium. If you’re a shared owner you’ll also pay rent on the share of the property that you do not own.

What is in your lease

Each lease is specific to the property it relates to, but will outline our respective rights and responsibilities, including what parts of the property are communal areas for the benefit of all leaseholders.

Your rights and responsibilities:

·       To pay your rent and service charges in full and on time

·       To maintain and repair anything demised to you under your lease

·       To abide by the terms of your lease, and ensure that any visitors to the property do the same

·       To ensure that communal areas are kept clear, balconies are not used to store large combustible items, and that you don’t deliberately do anything which may invalidate any insurance policy

·       To ask for our consent to sublet or make alterations to the property as required by your lease

Our responsibilities:

·       To maintain and repair the structure of the building in blocks of flats, or the wider estate, where we are responsible to do so (some estates may have an external managing agent responsible for this on behalf of the freeholder)

·       To maintain the buildings insurance policy (insurance for your contents in your responsibility)

·       To service and maintain services supplied to the whole block (fire alarms, lifts, fire safety equipment)

·       To consult you before undertaking major works to a block which you’ll be liable to pay for

When you might need our consent:

·       Making structural alterations to the property, such as extensions or knocking down internal walls

·       Pets (if you live in a block of flats)

·       If you have a shared ownership lease:

o Remortgaging

o   Selling or assigning your lease

Adding or removing a leaseholder

If you want to add or remove a leaseholder from your lease you’ll need to ask for consent from us and your mortgage lender (if you have one), and you’ll need a solicitor to help with the transfer and re-registration of the property with the Land Registry. There will be legal costs and administrative costs for you to pay, and we can do this as part of a remortgaging or staircasing transaction.

We may need to carry out some eligibility or affordability checks before we are able to grant our consent, so it’s important that you speak to us in advance so that we can tell you what is required in your specific situation.