Enfranchisement

For houses, the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 gives a qualifying tenant under a long lease at a low rent 'a right to acquire on fair terms the freehold or an extended lease of the house and premises,' and HM Land Registry's Practice Guide 27 confirms in plain terms that 'the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 confers on a tenant of a house under a long tenancy at a low rent the right to either' buy the freehold or obtain a lease extension. Eligibility depends on the tenancy meeting the Act's definition of a long lease at a low rent and, in some cases, the tenant having occupied the house 'as his only or main residence' for the last two years, or for periods totalling two years in the last ten. Flats cannot be enfranchised individually under this route because ownership of a flat's freehold is inseparable from the rest of the building — instead leaseholders of flats use collective enfranchisement.

Collective enfranchisement, created by the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, lets qualifying tenants of flats in a building buy the freehold together. Section 13 of the 1993 Act provides that '[a] claim to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement with respect to any premises is made by the giving of notice of the claim under this section,' and that initial notice must be given by a number of qualifying tenants that is 'not less than one-half of the total number of flats' in the building — the participation threshold that makes collective enfranchisement a group exercise rather than something a single flat-owner can trigger alone. The notice has to set out the premises to be acquired, the grounds for the claim, the proposed purchase price, and the identity of the nominee purchaser who will hold the freehold on the participating tenants' behalf, and it must give the freeholder (the 'reversioner') at least two months to respond with a counter-notice.