Website Cookie Policy

We use cookies to give you the best possible online experience. If you continue, we’ll assume you are happy for your web browser to receive all cookies from our website.
See our cookie policy for more information.

Practice Areas

More Information

thepartners@wrigleys.co.uk

Leeds: 0113 244 6100

Sheffield: 0114 267 5588

FOLLOW WRIGLEYS:

Send us an enquiry
Close

Community-led housing and commonhold

30 July 2020

Latest updates from the Law Commission report.

In this recent article, we discussed the recent Law Commission report outlining their recommendations for a change to the law on leasehold enfranchisement.  At the same time, the Law Commission also published their report on ‘Reinvigorating commonhold’. 

As with the Law Commission’s work on leasehold enfranchisement, we have also had substantial interaction with the cross-party parliamentary commission looking at commonhold and have fed in to the Law Commission’s initial consultation.

Commonhold is a novel legal structure, outside the usual concepts of freehold and leasehold, which has been little used since it was first launched because of perceived difficulties with the structure.  One of these difficulties is that, under the current law, commonhold owners cannot grant residential leases for a term of longer than 7 years.  In this report, the Law Commission recommended that shared ownership leases should be exempt from these restrictions, which is good news for affordable housing providers considering commonhold. 

Unfortunately for the CLH sector, the Law Commission recommended against a general exemption to the ban on long leases being made for community land trusts or housing co-operatives, arguing that long leases are not necessary to ensure affordable housing is available within these structures.  Although disappointing, it would be open to CLTs or housing co-operatives to make use of the shared ownership exemption, or to offer leases of less than 7 years.  Their feeling (expressed in consultation although not so obvious in the report) is that CLH and commonhold are too different from each other to work and we think this view has merit.

We have not generally recommended commonhold for CLH groups, not least because we have been concerned about the lack of flexibility permitted in the articles of association which govern the commonhold association.  Although the Law Commission’s recommendations include some changes to these articles of association, we are not convinced that these would be enough to make commonhold a realistic option for most CLH groups.

Whether these recommendations are enough to truly reinvigorate commonhold remains to be seen. 

If you would like to discuss any aspect of community led housing further, please contact Emma RidgeLaura Moss or any other member of the dedicated Community Led Housing team on 0113 244 6100.

You can also keep up to date by following Wrigleys charities team on Twitter here

The information in this article is necessarily of a general nature. Specific advice should be sought for specific situations. If you have any queries or need any legal advice please feel free to contact Wrigleys Solicitors.

 

 

 
Emma Ridge View Biography

Emma Ridge

Partner
Leeds

Laura Moss View Biography

Laura Moss

Partner
Leeds

02 Dec 2024

How can community-led organisations get involved in the ownership of land for nature recovery?

We recently hosted an online event to look at this question. Here’s a summary of the event and some of the key takeaways….

28 Nov 2024

Work experience and employing children - what employers and schools need to know

A look at the overlapping laws, regulations and obligations around employing young people and children.

27 Nov 2024

What are the requirements for a smaller-scale redundancy consultation?

Court of Appeal clarifies smaller-scale redundancy consultation requirements.