Separating the leasehold hats

When people talk about leasehold blocks of flats, there's sometimes a conflation of some of the roles of the organisations involved. It can be quite frustrating and counterproductive. This article contains an extended analogy with the idea of "singer-songwriters" to illustrate how much of a problem this can be.

Roughly speaking, there are these types of organisations:

• developers (who built the building)
• freeholders (who own the building)
• managers (who run the building)

The fact that, sometimes, some of these might be the same people, should not derail every discussion.

Singer-songwriters

Imagine you're trying to discuss how long copyright in songs lasts: you have to deal with the differing lengths of copyright terms in sheet music versus recordings versus performances. They're also taxed differently in some countries. Now further imagine that someone in the conversation keeps confusing singers with songwriters, and keeps saying "singer" when he means "songwriter" because *some* songwriters are also singers(!)

It's hopeless: you can't criticise, say, singers (e.g., for the prevalence of tax avoidance schemes in the sector) because now you're complicit in a conversation that mixes them up with songwriters, who will smart from the criticism. You can't propose reforms, because people who otherwise agree with you have been saying things that are untrue out of sheer laziness, and you'll be lumped together with them by your opponents.

Back to buildings

So this is just a plea to call a spade a spade, and to stop calling a spade a hammer:

• not all owners of blocks of flats were responsible for building those blocks (indeed, they may be busy pursuing the builders through the courts right now)
• not all owners of blocks of flats have control over the management of the blocks of flats; many blocks are let under tripartite leases or other arrangements
• not all freeholders of blocks of flats receive ground rent
• not all ground rent goes to freeholders; there might be a head lessee
• not all Residents Management Companies are actually controlled by residents
• not all insurance is arranged by freeholders; it might be arranged by the building's manager
• not all freeholders are freeholders of blocks of flats; some might be owners of houses on an estate next to a block of flats, and just as much a victim as the owners of the flats
• not all leases are residential
• not all managing agents are the management companies for blocks of flats