What can you do if your freeholder or managing agent is not fulfilling their responsibilities?
The communal roof has been leaking for months, the lift keeps failing and the shared areas look more neglected every week. The service charge bills, though, arrive like clockwork, with little to show where the money goes. Your emails to the managing agent bring apologies, promises, or nothing at all.
It is a frustrating position. You own your home, yet responsibility for much of the building around it sits with someone else, and when they fall short it can be genuinely hard to know who should put it right, let alone how to make them.
You have more options than the silence suggests. You can challenge poor management, force out information, and enforce obligations that are being ignored. Which option fits depends on what has gone wrong, who is responsible, and what you actually want: a fixed roof, a straight answer about the bills, or a change in how the whole building is run.
Work out who owes the duty
Leasehold language tends to hide a simple question: who is supposed to do the job? Sorting that out is what turns a vague grievance into something you can enforce.
As the leaseholder, you own the leasehold interest in your flat for the term of the lease. The freeholder owns the freehold of the building and land, subject to the leases and other rights over it. Your landlord is whoever holds the interest immediately above your lease, often the freeholder, sometimes an intermediate landlord in between. A management company may carry its own duties under the lease for running the building, with the leaseholders as its shareholders or members. A managing agent, by contrast, is usually a professional firm brought in by the landlord or management company to run things day-to-day.
The point to hold onto: the agent who receives your emails may be the one who should organise a repair, but the legal duty to carry it out usually belongs to the landlord or management company. Before you act, identify the party that actually owes the obligation, because that is the party you can hold to account.
A share of freehold does not remove that step. If six flat owners together own their building's freehold through a company, each still holds an individual lease and, separately, a share or membership in the freehold company. You can be both a leaseholder and, through the company, one of the owners of your own freeholder. The freehold company may be required by the leases to insure, repair and maintain the building, and may hire a managing agent to do the work, sometimes with a separate management company involved as well. Where a company is in the picture, its articles of association, meaning its governing rules, together with the members' rights and the directors' decisions, all come into play. Part of the answer, in other words, may lie with a body you help to control.
Start with what the lease says
Your lease is the map. It should set out who maintains each part of the building, which services must be provided, and how the cost is recovered through the service charge. Typically a landlord is made responsible for the roof, the structure, the common areas and insuring the building.
When the responsible party does not meet those obligations, that can be a breach of the lease, and this is the moment your complaint sharpens into a usable question: which specific obligation has been broken, and what needs to happen to put it right?
The lease is not the whole story. Leaseholders also have statutory rights that can help you understand or challenge how your building is managed. Depending on the circumstances, these include asking for a summary of service charge costs and inspecting the paperwork behind it, obtaining buildings insurance information, being consulted on certain major works or long-term agreements, and challenging particular service or administration charges. Each right has its own conditions, exceptions and time limits, so the practical task is matching the right one to your particular problem.
Follow the money
Service charges are often where management problems surface first. The bill jumps while standards drop, the accounts list work you do not recognise, or repairs you paid for turn out to be unfinished or badly done.
In the right circumstances you can ask a tribunal to decide whether service charges are payable and whether they are reasonable, and to look at the standard of the services or works you were charged for. In England that is the First-tier Tribunal; in Wales it is the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, part of the Residential Property Tribunal Wales. Applicable administration charges can be challenged too.
One caution worth heeding: it is tempting to cancel the direct debit or withhold payment until someone listens, but that can backfire, because the landlord may act to recover the unpaid sums and you end up with a second dispute on top of the first. Take advice before withholding anything, so you can challenge a charge without walking into an arrears problem. Paying a service charge is not in itself an admission that the service charge is due and the charge can still be challenged up to 6 years (sometimes 12 years depending on the lease) after it has been demanded.
Getting the repair actually done
Challenging a bill can settle what you should pay, but getting the repair itself carried out is a different job. If the lease puts the roof on the landlord and they keep ignoring a known leak, that persistent failure can justify legal action to enforce the obligation.
The right response tracks the wording of the lease and the seriousness of the problem. A formal letter is sometimes enough on its own, if it names the repairing obligation, explains how it has been breached and spells out the action required. If that does not work, a civil court claim can seek an injunction requiring action, or specific performance, meaning an order to carry out a contractual obligation, and damages for loss caused by the breach may be available too. The outcome depends on the lease, the facts and the court's discretion. A service charge tribunal cannot order repairs in general, though separate statutory remedies can apply to certain building safety issues.
The aim throughout is the same: turn a pile of unanswered complaints into one clearly defined obligation and a specific remedy you are asking for.
When the whole building needs a different approach
Sometimes fixing one fault at a time never gets on top of the problem, and what you really need is a change in how the building is run. There are a few routes, and they are easy to confuse, so here is what each one is really for.
Right to Manage is the most accessible. Qualifying leaseholders can take over specified management functions without having to prove the current management is bad. If the statutory requirements are met and the process is completed, those functions pass to a Right to Manage company that the leaseholders control, and you can then manage the building yourselves or appoint your own agent. The freehold does not change hands. Changes that took effect on 3 March 2025 widened access: the permitted non-residential proportion of a qualifying building rose from 25% to 50%, and leaseholders are now generally not liable for the landlord's costs of a claim, subject to exceptions. Eligibility still needs careful checking, but the door is wider than it was. This is the route when you want control and can meet the criteria, whatever the state of the current management.
Appointing a manager is the route when management has genuinely failed. You can ask the tribunal, the First-tier Tribunal in England or the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal in Wales, to appoint a manager under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. Unlike Right to Manage, this needs evidence supporting statutory grounds, such as breaches of obligations, unreasonable service or administration charges, or failure to follow an approved management code, and the tribunal must be satisfied that the appointment is just and convenient. You usually have to serve a preliminary notice first, setting out the complaints and giving the landlord a chance to put things right; if the problems continue, the application follows. The manager's powers come from the tribunal's order, so this is not simply an agent the leaseholders have chosen. This is the route when you can show serious failure and want a tribunal-backed manager in place.
Collective enfranchisement is the long-term option. Qualifying leaseholders club together to buy the freehold and take lasting control of the building's ownership and management. It is a significant acquisition, not a quick fix for a single complaint, and should be weighed on that footing. This is the route when you want ownership, not just management, and are ready for the commitment.
The reforms still on the way
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is arriving in stages, so it pays to check what is actually in force before relying on it. The Right to Manage changes above are already live. Other measures are not, and should not yet be treated as rights you hold.
In July 2026 the Government said new service charge transparency, information and litigation cost measures in England were intended to come into force as soon as possible from 2027. As at 18 September 2026, the safe approach is to rely on your lease and the statutory rights that already exist, and to confirm commencement before counting on anything new. Wales sets its own timetable for the devolved measures.
Complaining about the managing agent
Sometimes the real issue is the agent's service rather than a disputed duty under the lease. Start with the agent's own formal complaints procedure, then check whether an approved redress scheme can take the complaint further. In England, qualifying property management agents must belong to an approved scheme, subject to the statutory scope and exemptions; do not assume it covers every freeholder, or that Wales works in the same way.
Redress can deal with poor service, but it does not replace court or tribunal enforcement of a lease obligation. If the underlying problem is a failure to repair or maintain the building, you still need to identify the landlord or management company that owes the duty.
Before you take action
Weigh the cost before proceedings begin. In tribunals, parties usually bear their own legal costs, subject to exceptions, so winning does not automatically mean your fees come back. Under the current regime a landlord may also try to recover legal costs through a service or administration charge, depending on the lease and the route taken.
You may be able to seek an order limiting that recovery, including under section 20C of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 or paragraph 5A of Schedule 11 to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. These protections are not automatic, and the 2024 Act's new costs regime should not be assumed to be in force yet. Looking at the likely costs alongside the relevant lease clauses is what tells you whether proceedings, negotiation or mediation is the proportionate choice.
Whichever route you take, build a clear record. Keep correspondence, service charge documents, major works notices and copies of your complaints, and photograph the problems. Note when you reported each defect and what response you received. If several leaseholders are affected, a shared timeline can show whether an issue is a one-off or part of a wider pattern, which matters a great deal if you later need to prove serious management failure.
How can we help?
At Laurus, our Property Litigation team can read the lease, pin down who owes the relevant obligation, and advise on the approach most likely to get you the result you want, whether that is a focused letter, a challenge to a charge, enforcement of a duty to repair, or one of the collective management options. Where a dispute can be resolved without proceedings, through negotiation or mediation, we will aim for that first. If your building is not being looked after as it should be, early advice helps you choose the right route before the problem grows harder and more expensive to fix.
You can reach the team on 020 3145 6300 or email enquiries@lauruslaw.co.uk
