Natalie Deuchar comments in Estates Gazette on a Court of Appeal ruling concerning leaseholders' right to manage their buildings

The Court of Appeal has ruled that Liverpool leaseholders are unable to exercise the right to manage their buildings due to a shared car park.

The Courtyard, The Studios and X1 The Terrace, are three blocks which form part of the Plaza Boulevard development in Liverpool. Their respective RTM companies claimed the right to manage, on the basis of each respective block being a self-contained part of the wider building. 

The Court of Appeal ruled that, because the blocks share an undivided basement car park with the wider development, leaseholders are not able exercise the right to manage their buildings.

At the centre of the case was the meaning of “self-contained part of a building” under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, which governs leaseholders’ right to manage their buildings.

The case was joined with a second appeal concerning 14 Park Crescent in central London, which was recently restored to residential use after revelopment. In that case, however, the court dismissed a challenge by the landlords to the right of leaseholders to manage the building, with party walls deemed a sufficient physical division.

Natalie Deuchar, Senior Associate in our Real Estate Disputes team, explains in Estates Gazette that landlords and leaseholders will benefit from the clarity of this ruling.

Under the existing law, in modern multi-block estates where blocks share an open, undivided basement car park, they are unlikely to qualify for the right to manage on a block-by-block basis.

Read the full article in Estates Gazette here (subscription required).