Rights and responsibilities
Your lease or tenancy agreement contains all of your rights and responsibilities, and is a legally binding document between you and us. This section details some of your rights and guarantees which are important to the service we offer you.
Your rights as a tenant
You have security of tenure. This means we cannot force you to leave your home without an order for possession from the courts. The courts will not grant an order unless we follow the correct procedure, such as sending you proper notice etc. We will ask the courts for a possession order if you have seriously and persistently broken the rules of your tenancy agreement by, for example, not paying your rent or behaving in an anti-social way towards your neighbours.
Your rights as a leaseholder
You have the right to appoint an auditor to look at the way we are managing your property. This is stated in the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (the term auditor is called ‘surveyor’ throughout the Act).
The auditor must be:
- Qualified, for example a fellow or professional associate of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and
- Appointed by two thirds of the leaseholders within the block.
The auditor can look at things like a summary of service charge spending (how much money we have spent on communal areas) for the most recent 12 month accounting period. They can also inspect the communal areas of buildings, inspect documents and take copies.