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Thanks - useful info .
We will see soon how many of us wish to /can be arsed to fight this. I fear the talk of one person who talks of 'just selling up' and cutting their losses - to sell they would have to disclose the proposed building maintenance charge though.
Another concern is although there are 8 leaseholders now (40% of the block) what about the 60% that rent and appear to be quite transient ?
Its not really a 'community' .
not4sale-
Engagement is always the trick, and unfortunately it takes a bit of time, which is something it doesn't seem you have on your side. It took us the best part of a year to get 50% engagement, but we had to try a few different approaches - websites, email groups, meetings, what have you. Really we started out with two flats with similar viewpoints, and we just started bringing everyone along with us any way we could.
The main useful one which you can do right now is set up a WhatsApp group. To owner occupiers and tenants, you can frame it as being a place to create more of a community and share useful information. As relationships develop you'll begin to meet landlords, and while they tend not to care too much about quality of life (generally speaking) they definitely care about protecting their investment, so you can frame it in that way. The best thing about pursuing RTM (or Enfranchisement if you're feeling flush) is that it speaks to all those goals. Once you have control of your own money you don't spend it frivolously, and you get better results from it. And coming together as a group to fuck a bastard freeholder definitely builds community.
It's a pain, I've had to spend over an hour on the phone today to various residents, cajoling and convincing and calming, but it'll all be worth it when our service charge goes down, our quality of life and value of our flats goes up.
If I can help any please shout dude. It's intimidating to start with but it picks up its own momentum with time.
ReekBlefs
Leaseholder Advisory Service are fairly good if you get the right person, but they're not exactly on the side of the leaseholder. The advice I got from Leasehold Knowledge Partnership (who are less well resourced, but are FIRMLY on the side of the leaseholder) when I asked about destabilising a problem freeholder was to:
A block management company who are well resourced will be willing to take the freeholder to a Tribunal which is not something a freeholder wants because it's on record, it makes them vulnerable. Worth looking into.
If you go with company (I'm thinking of Canonbury here but I'm sure there are others) they'll waive all fees for RTM process if you use their block management services for two years. Worth considering and you can do it with 50% engagement. Nothing like a £3.5k bill to focus the mind.