Timothy Fancourt QC explains Sportelli’s impact on determination of enfranchisement prices
Successive Acts of Parliament, starting with the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 (LRA 1967), have given tenants of houses and flats (in defined circumstances) the right to acquire a freehold interest or an extended lease from their landlords. This legislation has always been contentious. LRA 1967 was challenged in the European Court of Human Rights as infringing the principle against expropriation of property without proper compensation, but the challenge failed. Perhaps in consequence, the rights conferred by the Acts are compendiously described and known as “enfranchisement”.
leasehold enfranchisement
Leasehold enfranchisement is regarded as a highly technical and rather specialist area of practice. It seems to produce highly technical decisions, many of which defy easy understanding. On occasions, however, a decision is made that has wide and general importance for practitioners who do handle enfranchisement claims. The recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Earl Cadogan v Sportelli [2007] EWCA Civ 1042, [2007] All ER (D) 396 (Oct) is one such case. It decides, on appeal from the Lands Tribunal, issues of principle
