Yesterday, late on Friday afternoon the Directors of the leasehold management company of 5 and 6 Friar Street sat down to discuss how we could manage our property.
We would have liked to have done so as the owners of the freehold (known as common hold) but this is not on the agenda.
We would have liked to know why our insurance keeps going up despite us never making a claim (we have no broking capability).
Most of all we would have liked to know why we pay on average £1250 a year to the freeholder for the privilege of living on his little plot of lands (on average we lease 800 square feet of land).
Last week I had a £10 lunch (as cheap as you can get) with Harry Scoffin. I hope he cheered him up, I’d like to think I helped him to produce this great work of defiance!
PM Andy Burnham is making the right noises about Leasehold Law reforms. Leasehold contracts are little more than long-term subscriptions from which signatories are unable to free themselves without a long and expensive legal battle. https://t.co/U37T3QUkvU
— Norma Cohen (@NormaCohen3) September 4, 2026
Norma says it better than I can, and Harry says it better than the both of us as the words come from deep within him!
We have a good relationship with our managing agents which means we get things done and have as good a relationship as you can with a freeholder we know nothing of. It could be M&G who own a lot of residential freeholds. If they think that it’s earning them any ESG brownie points with me, they had better think again.
We have two more years to pay our freeholder an outrageous sum. I will be 107 before the £250 disappears -assuming that Burnham does what his predecessors pledged but never did. Heh- like many others among the 5m leaseholders in England , Wales and Northern Ireland, I envy the Scots who did away this iniquity some time ago.
Watch Harry Scoffin’s video and then send it to anyone you know who’s a trapped leaseholder. If you know anyone who’s benefiting from freeholds – send it them as well.
“I envy the Scots who did away this iniquity some time ago.” It must have been a long time ago: I’ve owned property in Scotland and never experienced this “iniquity”. I suspect you’ve fallen for some propaganda from the devolved governments, Fabian Socialist or Nationalist Socialist.
A wee Scottish history lesson, although I’m sure “dearieme” dinnae need me to teach his granny tae suck eggs.
Feus(specifically the payments known as feu-duties) were the Scots law equivalent of English ground rents. For practical and financial purposes, they functioned in almost exactly the same way: a property owner made a recurring annual payment to a landlord or “superior” who retained an underlying interest in the land.
The creation of new feu-duties was banned by the Land Tenure Reform (Scotland) Act 1974.
The entire system of feudal superiorities and remaining feu-duties was completely abolished on Martinmas (November 28) 2004 under the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000.
Today, heritable property ownership in Scotland is almost exclusively Absolute Ownership (the true equivalent of English Freehold).
Leasehold tenants’ rights were fundamentally strengthened—and in many cases converted into absolute ownership—in Scotland by the Long Leases (Scotland) Act 2012.