Property Management Event: Multi-Skilling for Property Managers

Details: Earl Kendrick is a key sponsor of this inaugural conference at Oxford University’s St Hugh’s College. Full details are on the organiser’s website, www.pmlegalconferences.com. Join us there for Earl Kendrick sessions on Getting the most out of your building surveyor, Planned Maintenance Programmes and Licence to Alter.  

Licence to Alter: getting the balance right

Jonathan is a leaseholder in a lovely two-bedroom apartment in a stunning residential block. He had lived there for three years and one day he had a vision! This involved knocking down a partition wall between his kitchen and sitting room, and installing a hard-wood floor throughout the newly created, open-plan space. He knocked on the wall … Read more

Licence to Alter: Retrospective consent

While any competent surveyor will advise when licence to alter is required, it is ultimately the responsibility of the leaseholder to obtain a licence when necessary before undertaking alterations. A contractor is unlikely to ask for the relevant consent paperwork before beginning work, so in purely practical terms, it is perfectly possible to carry out … Read more

Licence to Alter: Alterations under the radar

Licence to alter can often seem like an awful lot of trouble over what might appear to be a trivial matter. Leaseholders tend to think of themselves as home owners with the right to do what they like to their own properties, even if that’s technically not the case. And managing agents typically have enough … Read more

Licence to Alter: Tailor-made procedures

If you are the managing agent of a residential block or development, or director of a share-of-freehold resident management company, the chances are that sooner or later you will have to deal with licence to alter. But you do not have to wait for a leaseholder to apply before thinking about how to respond. The … Read more

Licence to Alter: The Big Three

Depending on the terms of the lease, licence to alter can be required for any number of different types of work within a residential or commercial property. The most common types generally fall into one of three categories. These are described below with recommended conditions for landlords, which also indicate what is likely to be … Read more

Licence to Alter: the streamlined ‘desktop’ process for landlords

Generally speaking, it is unlikely that a lease will specify that the landlord should instruct a surveyor to physically visitthe site as part of the process of preparing a licence to alter. The job of the landlord’s surveyor is not, typically, to overseethe leaseholder’s works. It is to review the works the leaseholder is proposing … Read more

Licence to Alter: What does the lease say?

‘Lease’ is the legal term for a property contract giving the leaseholder exclusive possession of land for a determinable period of time. The lease itself is essentially a written agreement recording the terms on which the landlord cedes possession of the property to the leaseholder. If the leaseholder ‘sells’ the property, strictly speaking what they … Read more

Licence to Alter: The basics

Leaseholders do not own their property outright, but have the right to occupy or sublet it for an extended period, typically 99 years or more. This means they do not have an automatic right to make lasting alterations to the property, such as installing a new wet room or replacing the windows. Instead, they must … Read more

Brighton Property Management Boot Camp

Event Details Venue: 68 Middle Street, Brighton, BN1 1AL Date: 30/03/2017 Time: 14:30 Seeking consent for alterations that are made, or intended to be made, to a flat is one of the most common day-to-day issues that every property manager, landlord and leaseholder need to fully understand. A “Licence to Alter” is the term given to the consent … Read more