About

Buildings run by the people who live in them

Thousands of blocks of flats in England and Wales are owned by their own leaseholders through a freehold company, or run by them through a Right to Manage company. Many still pay a managing agent around £300 a flat every year to do work their own board could do, with the right tools.

The problem

Volunteer directors are left holding legal duties they were never trained for: fire safety, Section 20 consultations, service charge accounts, company filings. So they hand everything to an agent, and lose sight of the decisions and the money. When an agent gets it wrong, the leaseholders are the last to find out.

What we're building

Freeholdpilot gives a building's own board what the agent's office had: one place for the lease and the records, an assistant that answers from the building's own documents with the clause it came from, repair reporting and contractor booking, online votes, budgets and service charges, and payments made through open banking from the company's own account once the directors approve them.

Openness is built in. Every leaseholder can see the service charge and reserve accounts, the invoices behind them and who approved each payment, and the directors can't switch that off.

Where we are

We're testing Freeholdpilot with a large block of flats in Brighton and opening to a small group of founding buildings in England and Wales. Our news desk follows leasehold reform, building safety and service charge law for directors every day.

Who we are

Freeholdpilot is part of Streetvisit, an independent business in Brighton. You can reach us at hello@freeholdpilot.com. Business details are on our legal information page.