Case study: how Marlborough Court reached 62% and took back control

Note: Marlborough Court is a fictional illustrative block used as a demonstration example. Names, figures, and events in this case study are invented for illustration purposes. The legal process described reflects verified facts about how Right to Manage works; no specific tribunal cases or external statistics have been invented or cited.

This is general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, speak to a solicitor or get free guidance from the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE).

Marlborough Court is a four-storey, twenty-flat Victorian conversion in a mid-sized English town. For the purposes of this case study, it is entirely fictional — but the RTM journey it went through reflects exactly how the process works for real blocks up and down the country. The frustrations that prompted it, the organisational challenge of reaching the participation threshold, the legal steps, and the early results after acquisition: all of it is grounded in verified fact.

The story of Marlborough Court is useful not because it is exceptional, but because it is ordinary. Many blocks share the same starting conditions. This is what the journey looks like, honestly told.

The problem: an unresponsive agent and rising charges

For years, the leaseholders at Marlborough Court had managed their relationship with their managing agent with mounting unease. The common parts were maintained, more or less — the cleaning happened, the garden was cut once a fortnight — but communication was poor. Requests for information about where the service charge money was going took weeks to receive a reply, if they were answered at all. The annual accounts arrived late or not at all. When the roof over the top-floor flats began leaking in the autumn, weeks passed before a contractor appeared.

The service charge had risen, year on year, without a detailed budget explanation. The residents suspected the charges were not unreasonable in absolute terms — the building needed maintaining — but they had no way to verify it, no sense of control, and no confidence that the reserve fund was building to a level that matched the building's needs.

Two residents decided to do something about it. One had lived in the building for several years and had a background in project management. The other was a newer arrival who had done a little research after a conversation at the letterboxes about the latest service charge demand. They read about Right to Manage and started asking questions.

Step one: checking whether RTM was possible

The first question was eligibility. Marlborough Court had to meet several tests under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 to qualify for RTM.

It was a self-contained building. It contained more than two flats. All twenty-one flats were held by leaseholders with long leases — all originally granted for more than 21 years, which is the qualifying test. The building was entirely residential: no commercial units, no mixed-use floor space. So the non-residential limit was not a concern (that limit, raised from 25% to 50% in March 2025, would in any case have been met).

None of the flats were directly owned by the freeholder — another qualifying condition.

Marlborough Court was eligible. But eligibility alone was not enough.

The participation problem

Right to Manage requires that at least half of the qualifying flats in the building are represented by members of the RTM company. At Marlborough Court, that meant at least eleven of the twenty-one flats — just over half — had to have their leaseholders as members before the claim notice could be served.

In theory, this sounds straightforward. In practice, it was the hardest part of the journey.

Of the twenty-one flats, four were owned by a single investor landlord who rented them out on short tenancies. The qualifying tenant for RTM purposes is the long leaseholder — not the short-term occupant — so those four flats could in principle support the RTM claim. But the investor landlord was not enthusiastic about RTM and declined to engage.

Of the remaining seventeen flats, several were occupied by leaseholders who had lived there for years and were sceptical that anything would change. "It's always been this way," was a common sentiment. A few were suspicious of the motives of the residents leading the effort. Two were second homes whose owners rarely visited and did not respond to initial letters.

The two organisers held an informal kitchen meeting with interested neighbours. Six people came. Six participants from seventeen occupied flats was not enough.

They wrote to every leaseholder — using names and addresses obtained from the Land Registry, and in some cases contacting leaseholders through their solicitors or the managing agent's leaseholder database (which they were entitled to request). They explained, in plain language, what RTM was, what it was not, and what they hoped to achieve.

What RTM is: a statutory, no-fault right for leaseholders to take over management of their building — to set the service charge budget, appoint contractors, and run the block themselves or appoint their own managing agent.

What RTM is not: buying the freehold, changing the lease terms, acquiring ownership, or requiring any ongoing commitment from members who simply want to support the principle.

Slowly, the numbers grew. One leaseholder who had been indifferent became engaged when told that membership required no ongoing time commitment and simply gave them a vote in how their building was managed. Another came on board after the roof leak dragged on for three more weeks without resolution. The investor landlord's flats stayed out, but by month three of the organising effort, eleven flats had members in the RTM company: 52% of the building. Above the threshold. The company was live.

They kept going. By the time the claim notice was ready to serve, thirteen flats — 62% of the building — had their leaseholders as members of the RTM company. Comfortably over the minimum. That buffer felt important: if anyone withdrew, the claim would not collapse.

Forming the company and serving the notices

Before serving the claim notice, the RTM company had to be incorporated. A company limited by guarantee, using the prescribed model articles for RTM companies, registered at Companies House. The two organising directors were joined on the board by one other leaseholder, providing a core team of three.

With the company incorporated, the process moved to the statutory notice sequence.

First, a notice inviting participation had to be served on every qualifying tenant who was not already a member of the RTM company. This is a legal requirement — every qualifying leaseholder must be invited, even if they have already indicated they are not interested. The notice set out the RTM company's details and the right to join before the claim notice was served. A further two leaseholders joined at this stage.

Then the claim notice was served on the freeholder. This notice had strict content requirements: the RTM company's details, the address of the building, the basis on which the building qualified, and the proposed acquisition date (at least three months after the counter-notice deadline). It was served by recorded post to the freeholder's registered address.

The freeholder's response

The freeholder had one month to respond with a counter-notice. A counter-notice can either admit the claim — accepting that the RTM company is entitled to take over management — or dispute it on specific prescribed grounds.

The Marlborough Court freeholder served a counter-notice disputing one aspect of the claim: they argued that the building did not meet the qualifying test in a technical respect relating to the description of the building's self-contained nature. It was not a compelling argument, and the directors felt confident it would not succeed at tribunal. But it added time and required legal input.

The RTM company applied to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). The hearing was relatively brief. The freeholder's argument was not upheld, and the tribunal determined that the building qualified and the RTM company was entitled to acquire the right to manage. Under the changes to RTM law that came into force on 3 March 2025, the RTM company was not liable for the freeholder's costs in this process — a change from the previous position, under which leaseholders routinely had to pay the freeholder's legal and surveyor costs even on a successful claim.

The acquisition date was set. Marlborough Court's RTM company took over management.

Early wins in self-management

The first task, as with any new RTM acquisition, was the handover — chasing the outgoing agent for records, service charge balances, compliance certificates, insurance documents, supplier contracts, and keys. The former agent was not enthusiastic but complied.

The service charge funds were transferred into the RTM company's own designated trust account. The money belonged to the leaseholders, not to any agent. That was not a new legal principle — it had always been the position under Section 42 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 — but under self-management it was visible in a way it had not been before. The directors could see the balance. They knew what was there and what it needed to cover.

The first board meeting produced three decisions that would have been impossible under the previous arrangement: first, a commitment to hold an annual residents' meeting at which the accounts would be presented and questions answered; second, a decision to commission a long-term maintenance plan from an independent surveyor, so the reserve fund contribution could be set on a defensible, evidence-based footing; third, a decision to go to market on the cleaning and gardening contracts, which had not been tendered since the previous agent took them on.

The first budget, set by the directors and shared with all residents before demands were issued, was scrutinised and debated. The total was similar to the previous year's charge — the costs of running the building had not changed — but for the first time residents understood exactly what they were paying for, line by line, including a separate reserve fund contribution that appeared as its own item rather than being folded into a lump-sum management charge.

The roof repair, which had dragged for months, was completed within five weeks of acquisition. The contractor was one the directors had found through neighbour recommendations, at a cost within the budget provision.

Not everything was easy. One leaseholder, the investor who owned four flats, continued to be unresponsive and ran up arrears within the first year. The directors handled this through an escalating process: clear demands, formal reminders, a final notice, and ultimately solicitor involvement. It was uncomfortable, and it took time. But the funds were eventually recovered.

What other blocks can take from Marlborough Court

The Marlborough Court story is not a fairy tale of effortless self-management. It was a year of organising, two months of legal process, a tribunal hearing, a fractious handover, and an arrears chase in year one. It was worth it — emphatically, the directors would say so — but it was work.

The lessons that translate to other blocks are these.

Start the participation work early and expect it to take longer than you think. The 50% threshold sounds simple; reaching it reliably, and maintaining it through to claim notice service, requires sustained effort. Contact every leaseholder personally, explain the benefits clearly, and keep the pressure off — this is a democratic exercise, not a sales drive.

Use the buffer. Forty leaseholders doing the minimum to reach 50% is a more fragile foundation than thirty at 55% or 60%. Keep recruiting past the threshold.

Documentation is your friend. Every step of the RTM process has strict procedural requirements. Keep copies of everything. If a step is challenged, your records are your evidence.

The first budget is a statement of intent. A transparent, well-explained budget builds the trust that makes everything else — compliance, arrears management, resident relations — easier.

Self-management is governance, not administration. The value is not just saving money or fixing the roof faster. It is the principle that the people who live in a building, and whose money pays for its upkeep, should have meaningful control over how it is run. Marlborough Court's directors would tell you that even the difficult bits of year one were less frustrating than the years of being managed, unresponsively, by someone else.

Frequently asked questions

Does RTM cost anything to pursue? Yes, though the costs depend on your circumstances. You will need to pay to incorporate the RTM company at Companies House. If you take legal advice — which is strongly recommended, particularly for the claim notice — there will be solicitor's fees. Under the law as it stands since March 2025, the RTM company is not liable for the freeholder's process costs in a non-contentious claim. If the freeholder disputes the claim and you go to tribunal, there may be further costs.

What if the freeholder disputes the claim? The matter goes to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), which determines whether the building qualifies and the RTM company is entitled to take over. As described above, the tribunal process is designed for exactly this situation and is navigable with legal advice.

Do all leaseholders have to participate? No. The threshold is 50% of qualifying flats. Leaseholders who do not join the RTM company still benefit from the improved management — they live in the building — but they do not have a vote in the RTM company's decisions and are not liable for the RTM company's organisational costs.

Can the freeholder take back management later? Under certain circumstances, the RTM company can cease to be entitled to exercise the right to manage — for example, if it is wound up or if the tribunal makes an order. In practice, a well-run RTM company that meets its obligations is not at risk of this.

What happens to the service charge money during the handover? The outgoing manager is obliged to transfer the service charge funds — held on trust for the leaseholders under Section 42 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 — to the RTM company. The RTM company should open its own designated trust account in advance of acquisition and ensure the transfer is completed promptly.