Rights and Obligations

This page contains information on rights and obligations of a leaseholder or freeholder. This also may be of interest to potential leaseholders/freeholders..

Alterations
Building Insurance
Garden Maintenance
Gas
Home Contents Insurance
Payment of Administration Charge
Service Charges
Subletting

Alterations

You can carry out improvements to your home. Examples of improvements are:

Installation of new windows
Installation of a new boiler
Any alteration to the internal structure of your property, eg removal of a wall

You must discuss your plans with us first and write with full details of what you plan to do. This is so that we can grant landlord's consent. You can write to the following address, or telephone us for advice on 020 8356 2298.

Business Support Officer
Hackney Homes Ltd
1st Floor
Christopher Addison House
72 Wilton Way
London E8 1BJ

You may also need to apply separately to Hackney Council for planning permission and Building Regulations approval, depending on the work you wish to carry out.

More information about alterations

Building Insurance

Hackney Homes is responsible for arranging the building insurance of your block, including your flat or maisonette. We will invoice you for this as part of your annual service charge, in accordance with the terms of your lease. As your lease requires you to have our block building insurance, you should not set up your own building insurance with anyone else (including your mortgage lender). You should, however, make your own arrangements for home contents insurance cover (further information shown below).

Please note that if you own a lease of a house rather than a flat or maisonette in a block, you may be able to arrange your own building insurance.

If you require a copy of your building insurance policy, please write to:

London Borough of Hackney
Insurance Section
3rd Floor, Keltan House
89 - 115 Mare Street
London E8 4RU

Garden Maintenance

You are responsible for keeping your garden tidy and free of rubbish. Some of your other garden responsibilities include trimming and lopping any shrubs, hedges and trees to make sure they do not become a nuisance to neighbours.

You must also maintain fences, garden paths and garden features (such as patios or terraces) that fall within your boundaries. The plans included with your lease will show you which boundaries you are responsible for. They are displayed on the plans using inverted "T" marks.

Hackney Homes is responsible for maintaining fences, paths etc in communal areas and you pay a proportion of the costs within your annual service charge.

Gas

You are responsible for the servicing of your gas appliances under the terms of your lease. For good health and safety reasons it is recommended that you have your gas appliances serviced by a qualified Gas Safe-registered engineer at least once a year.

If you sub-let your property and become a landlord then you are required by law to have the gas appliances serviced every year and keep appropriate records. More information on your responsibilities as a landlord are available as a PDF on the

Health & Safety Executive website.

Home Contents Insurance

We strongly advise you to take out home contents insurance. This will provide cover against damage to your TV, carpets, furniture, clothing and other household contents, if, for example, you had a fire, flood or burst pipe. The insurance also covers lost or stolen keys and certain items stolen in a break-in. You must arrange your own contents insurance policy and ensure that you take out adequate cover for your belongings. Unlike building insurance, contents insurance is not included within your service charges.

Payment of Administration Charge

The law requires us, under Section 158 and Schedule 11 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, to provide you with a summary of your rights and obligations as a leaseholder in paying administration charges.

This summary provides information about what your rights and obligations are and is not exhaustive. Where you have doubt as to what your rights and/or obligations are, you are advised to seek legal advice.

What is an administration charge?

The law defines this a charge you have to pay either with or as an addition to your service charges. The charge covers such matters as requests for an approval or consent under the lease, requests for information, for a breach of your lease or for failure to make a payment (eg for service charges) by the due date it's due.

Reasonableness

An administration charge has to be reasonable for you to pay it. Where you consider that it is unreasonable, then you have a right to challenge it with Hackney Homes, as well as take the matter before the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (known as LVT, an organisation set up by the government to look into such leaseholder issues and make a decision). Even if you believe your administration charge is unreasonable, you could still make payment as this will not undermine your case with either Hackney Homes or the LVT.

Requirements

Before we can demand that you pay an administration charge, we must supply you with a summary of your rights and obligations. You do not have to pay the administration charge until this is provided.

Your failure to pay on this basis will not allow any provision of the lease regarding non-payment to be applied against you.

Service Charges

This summary does not provide full interpretation of your rights under both your lease and legislation and is not meant to be a substitute to any legal or professional advice that you should seek.

It is strongly advised that where you have concerns as to what your rights and responsibilities are, you seek professional and legal advice. This document tells you what you may expect from London Borough of Hackney, as your landlord, and what we can expect from you as a leaseholder.

As a leaseholder, your lease is a contract between you and your landlord. Your landlord is London Borough of Hackney and Hackney Homes manages the property on the Council's behalf. Your lease specifies what you may or may not do whilst you own your leasehold property. If you are unhappy with what we have charged you or how we have calculated or apportioned your charges, you have a right to bring this to our attention and to withhold your payments of the disputed item(s) until we have resolved the matter for you. You must not withhold payment of the whole service charge, only the part that you disagree with.

Your rights as a leaseholder are given under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.

Your rights include the right to ask us to provide you with the following:

Summary of costs that we incurred.
Invoices and receipts that make up the service charge costs.
Inspection of such documents, as well as taking copies.
Explanation of how we incurred the cost.
How we calculated the service charges.
How we apportioned the charges.

Your rights also include:

Right to have a service charge demand served before you pay your service charges.
Right to be consulted before we carry out major works to your building (any works that are likely to cost each leaseholder more than £250).
Right to be consulted before we enter into certain types of agreements for services, works and supplies.
Right to challenge us on the reasonableness of the costs incurred.
Right to challenge us on the reasonableness of the standard of work.
Right to have your case heard by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (this is an organisation set up by government to deal with concerns between landlord and leaseholders on matters such as service charges).
You also have the right to have the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) determine whether or not your landlord should recover the cost of his legal proceedings from you through service charges.
You have a right to apply for a service charge loan where your service charge contribution exceeds a specified limit in a year (currently £2,090) and your property was bought under the Right to Buy in the last 10 years. Please note that you will have to find money to pay the first few hundred pounds of the service charge.
You have a right to have your service charge reduced where your landlord received a grant towards works that are carried out and your service charge cost in the last five years exceeds £10,000. This right is contained under the Social Landlords' Mandatory Reduction of Service Charges (England) Directions and the Social Landlords' Discretionary Reduction of Service Charges (England) Directions1997. There are conditions attached to both of these laws.

Your rights as listed above also come attached with responsibilities, which include:

Paying your service charges, as specified in your lease.
Paying your service charges promptly.
Paying the landlord its management fee.
Complying with the covenants, restrictions and other conditions contained in your lease.
Report any repairs needed to communal parts to the landlord.

If you have any queries you can phone Hackney Homes' Leasehold & RTB Customer Services on 020 8356 2100 or email service.charges@hackneyhomes.org.uk.

Subletting

Many leaseholders sublet their homes. Where this occurs a notice must be served to Hackney Homes informing us that this is happening and provide us with the following:

A signed copy of the tenancy agreement regarding the sublet property.
Details of your correspondence address, e-mail address and telephone number. This is so you can continue to receive your service charge bills and other important documents. It will also allow us to contact you quickly, should there be an emergency situation at your property.
The address, telephone number and e-mail address of any estate or letting agent managing the property on your behalf.
A cheque for £30, made payable to London Borough of Hackney. This fee is to register the sublet notice for legal reasons. It will also ensure that your building insurance is adequately covered and you comply with the terms of your lease.

Please send this information to the following address:

Customer Services
Leasehold & Right to Buy
Christopher Addison House
72 Wilton Way
London
E8 1BJ
Tel 020 8356 2100

NB If you wish to sublet your property for more than 12 months we require your tenant to enter into a Deed of Covenant with us. This is an agreement to say that the tenant will comply with all the provisions of the lease and be held liable for any failure to do so. To obtain a Deed of Covenant, please contact the Customer Services team using the details shown above.

As the leaseholder you remain responsible for paying the service charges, regardless of whether you make a private arrangement for your tenant to pay them. You are also responsible for the conduct of your tenants.

Using a letting agent

Letting property is governed by various pieces of legislation which landlords must comply with, such as the need to conduct annual gas safety checks, provide Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and protect deposits using an approved scheme. These are not the only requirements. Failure to comply with the law could result in prosecution or the tenant applying to the court for damages. As such, if you sublet your property then we strongly advise you to employ a suitably qualified letting agent.

If you have any queries please contact us on 020 8356 2100 or email service.charges@hackneyhomes.org.uk.