Lease Extension and new clauses

[perista]

Hi all

My mum is selling her share of freehold flat and on the verge of exchange has run into difficulties.

Her buyer wants to rent the property and to extend the lease. We have been told by the director that it would cost £30,000. After strained discussions with them he has agreed that she can extend the lease for £8000. My mother does not have this money and it is the buyer who wanted to extend the lease but the director will charge her more, putting the sales in jepoardy.

Secondly, a clause has been written into the lease stating that no owner can rent their property to anyone other than family. This is a new clause and has only been identified upon attempts to extend the lease. This now means that my mother's buyer would not continue with the sale. The soliciters have been trying to get a deed ammendment but to no avail and the director keeps changing his mind as to whether he knows about this new clause. Apparently he and the other 2 directors ( in a block of flats of 24 with several others renting their proerties) made this lease amendment in order to control who lives in the flat.

My mother and I are at our wits end and if she cannot sell she will not be able to live in the flats as now she is in despute with the director.

Can anyone tell us if this lease amendment is legal on the basis of not allowing people to rent their properties out and if so what would happen to all the other flats that are rented?

Any advise at all would be gratefully received.

Alice

[Richard Webster]

How long are the leases? What is the value of the flat?

Does the freeholder company hold AGMs? How many people go to them?

Have other leases already been extended, particularly those of the directors?

In theory if you could get together enough people then you could call a company meeting and remove the directors and resolve that lease extensions should be free apart from legal costs.

Unfortunately in most situations the majority of flat owners are apathetic and do not want to "rock the boat". Also there may be nobody else prepared to take on the role of director or people won't want to pay a managing agent to do most of the work so that the director's role is a less active one.