Book review: Hague on Leasehold Enfranchisement

Hague on Leasehold Enfranchisement
Anthony Radevsky & Damian Greenish
Sweet & Maxwell, £200, ISBN: 9781847031341

Leasehold enfranchisement has become an established feature of property law in this country. As nearly one million house owners hold them leasehold and more nearly 1.5 million people own leasehold flats, this is an area that has implications for a large number of leaseholders and their landlords. More than 40 years have passed since the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 was passed. This landmark measure established the right for house leaseholders to buy the freehold to the house with a separate right to extend the lease. Since that time flat leaseholders have acquired equivalent rights: a collective right to buy the freehold to their block and an individual right to by a new lease.

In 2008 there were no less than four key decisions by the House of Lords on enfranchisement issues. These were the decisions in the celebrated Sportelli litigation, probably the most important case on valuation and enfranchisement since 1967; another decision that establishes that a head lease can be a qualifying lease for flat lease extension purposes; a decision on the scope of the landlord’s right to resist claims where the current lease has less than five years to run and the landlord needs possession in order to redevelop and yet another decision on the correct approach to be taken in determining whether a building is a house or not.

Key reference work

Leasehold enfranchisement can be a fascinating area of law, valuation and procedure. It can also be challenging for practitioners and their clients. Fortunately there is a work that has for years served not just as a guide to this complicated area, but also a key reference point. This work is Hague on Leasehold Enfranchisement. It was first published in 1967 by Nigel Hague who, before his retirement, was a circuit judge. A second edition followed 20 years later. Of course, at that time, enfranchisement rights were confined to house leases: flat leaseholders had to wait until 1993 before being accorded similar rights.

A third edition followed in 1999. This is when the current authors, Anthony Radevsky and Damian Greenish, became involved and their task in updating the work was all the more challenging in that they had to write  new chapters to take account of the enactment of flat owners’ rights. In the fourth edition they had to consider the wide-ranging reforms made by the 2002 Act.

The fifth edition was recently published under the same authorship. It takes account of the four House of Lords’ decisions from last year; publication of the 5th edition was delayed to allow the authors to include coverage of these important cases. The amendments to the 1967 Act made by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 are also examined, though the latest edition of Hague was published before commencement of those changes last September.

The basic structure of the work is essentially the same as before. It starts with an interesting account of the development of the legislation and the policy issues—the arguments for and against the principle of enfranchisement rights. A detailed examination of the law and the valuation house lease enfranchisement and lease extension claim follows, with detailed accounts of the different issues that have to be considered from which house leases qualify and what can sometimes be a difficult question of whether a particular building is a “house” or not. Newcomers to this subject may well be surprised at how widely “house” is defined and puzzled at why the issue has gone as far as the House of Lords on four occasions.

The third part of the work is devoted to flat lease claims and the collective enfranchisement rights and the individual right to a new lease are considered in great detail.

Not only does the work cover enfranchisement and lease extension for house and flat leases, it also deals in considerable detail with the valuation. The valuation chapters must rank as one of the best accounts of this challenging area of law and practice. An account is also given of the jurisdiction of the leasehold valuation tribunal and the Upper Tribunal (Lands Tribunal).

As before, the new edition is clearly written and comprehensive in its coverage. Given the complexity of the legislation, the huge number of key court and tribunal decisions, this is a work of some considerable scholarship. For anyone advising on enfranchisement, whether they are lawyers or valuers, a copy of the new edition of Hague is an essential purchase.

James Driscoll, Trowers & Hamlins