Residential Alterations

Are you a block manager dealing with time-consuming and complex licence to alter applications?

Have you considered engaging a specialist Licence to Alter partner across your portfolio?

EK Licence to Alter

The Block Manager’s Licence to Alter Surveyor

Speedy processing and updates whenever you need them

Decades of alteration experience within the team

Hundreds of consents completed, hundreds of happy leaseholders

Bespoke Licence to Alter manuals for each block

EK Licence to Alter

Why Partner With Us?

ek-licencetoalter-small

Fast, efficient and cost effective

Swift and tried-and-tested procedures help to preserve good landlord/leasehold relations, whilst managing expectations. Cost undertakings are sought early on, with the leaseholder being made aware of their liabilities irrespective of the works proceeding. Retrospective licences are dealt with decisively, especially when leases are about to be assigned, pending alterations approval.

ek-licence-to-alter-1

Seamless interface with block managers

Communication is key, especially with potentially a dozen stakeholders/participants involved. We may be dealing with your client and a superior landlord too. We’ll be pleased to hold video calls with you or send regular trackers so you stay abreast of the ongoing LTA projects across your portfolio.

ekm_home_banner_05-scaled.jpg

Unrivalled technical expertise

Assimilating complex and contentious proposals, leases, plans, local authority approvals and specifications is our speciality. Technical oversight includes liaison with solicitors, managing agents, insurance brokers and other third party experts such as structural and M&E engineers, and H&S consultants too.

Expert advice

A hand-holding service start to finish

We will run the licence to alter application, liaising with all stakeholders throughout, so you can focus on managing the building. Whether the leaseholder’s application is for the installation of a new kitchen requiring informal permission, or structural works to create an open plan space, we will support you throughout the process, ensuring the lease terms are strictly adhered to, schedules of condition are arranged, and damage deposits taken. We also act for leaseholders themselves, navigating the minefield that is licence to alter.

Licence to Alter Workshop

We are committed to sharing knowledge and increasing your understanding and awareness of the licence to alter process and its many intricacies. We appreciate how licence to alter impacts on your role as a block manager and we want to make it easier for you.

Our licence to alter workshops share that knowledge with you and start a conversation to bespoke our procedures to how YOU work. Our licence to alter workshops include:

Register your details if you’d like to attend the next event

Block Manager Testimonials

I have worked with Bill on a number of licence to alter applications over the years, some of which have been complex and ‘back to the bare brick’ alterations.One such recent project involved a demanding new owner in a Mayfair block of flats with plans to completely alter and refurb their ground floor apartment. The works included moving the main apartment front door and increasing it in size, which was certainly a controversial intention, made more difficult by the last minute change in the design team prior to the project starting on site.

Bill and his team were able to deal with the demands of my client and the concerns of the other owners in the apartments above and below, which included noise and sound insulation, connections ready for the new heating and hot water services, delays and timescales being moved – most of which took place during the Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

The challenges that leaseholders and their professionals teams present property managers like me mean we need and rely on the type of support that EK Licence to Alter offers day in day out.
Sarah Belsham, MIRPM AssocRICS
Senior Property Manager, Fry & Co
We’re a self-managed private estate in Chelsea where leaseholder applications to alter their apartments are a regular occurrence. There are 275 apartments here on a high end 7.5 acre development, served by 26 members of my on-site team. We work to exacting standards.

Kings Chelsea has robust leases in place for everyone’s benefit and that means alterations small and large need landlord permission. EK Licence to Alter have dealt expertly with many applications to date, from minor ‘short form’ licences to entire apartment refurbishments, including structural works.

EK Licence to Alter is a well-oiled machine, a true specialist in this field and an invaluable extension of our own team. Their willingness to engage with all stakeholders encourages us let go of the reins and allow Bill and his team to liaise with solicitors, and with the leaseholders themselves and their contractors/professional teams. EK Licence to Alter will meet with the contractor pre-works, monitor the works in progress, and report as necessary to my team. It’s of great comfort to know we’re in safe hands with EK, and my team can focus on other priorities.
Mark Perkins
General Manager, Kings Chelsea, London
Bill and his team have been providing licence to alter services to Hamways for around five years and now they’re our go-to surveyor for leaseholder alterations on our large portfolio.

Whether the application is from a leaseholder in a small converted house, or an expansive mansion block, EK Licence to Alter will contact the applicant directly and take things from there. They are friendly, approachable and knowledgeable, so applicants are immediately put at ease, especially important when it’s their first home refurbishment project.

Complex or straightforward, we rely on EK Licence to Alter to adjust their service accordingly. We value their technical advice and their lease interpretation too. When it comes to liaison with our lawyers, EK Licence to Alter demonstrate a natural rapport which helps to accelerate the process.
Amanda Bartlett
Block Office Manager, Hamways

With a collective 50 years’ experience, having agreed many hundreds of consents and counting, EK Licence to Alter’s proven and rigorously-tested approach to demised alterations is what allows us to deliver remarkable results.

Request a copy of our Licence to Alter flowchart

Company

Quick Enquiry

Fill in our enquiry form to get in touch about a project or enquiry, or give us a call on +44 (0) 20 3667 1510.

We regularly send out copies of our up to date factsheets, event invites and news.

Licence to Alter Workshop

Register your details below if you’d like to attend the next event.