Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

 Members considered a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services in respect of Lease Enforcement.  Members noted that there had been extensive consultation on this matter and the Minutes from the Meeting of the Barbican Residents Consultation Committee on 27^th November 2017 had been circulated to BRC Members. 

All Members (who were eligible to speak and vote) were invited to comment as follows:

• The resource implications of strict Lease enforcement (as set out in Option 3), given the length and detail of most Leases.

• It was suggested that it might be timely to consider bringing Barbican Leases more up to date, given that many people worked from home without causing any disturbance.

• Purchasers should rely on their solicitors to review Leases and the onus was therefore on them to advise clients of any clauses which were likely to be invoked.

• Barbican Leaseholders were regularly reminded of Lease compliance via email broadcasts.

• Should the City of London Corporation fail to act in the event of a breach, the City Solicitor agreed to check whether they would be able to do so at a later date. 

• New complaints on existing wooden floors would be investigated, even if there had not been any previous breaches. 

• Members particularly noted the caveat in Option 2 whereby the affected parties would not need to demonstrate a breach by completing noise monitoring sheets, as had been the case previously. 

• Members agreed that annoyance should be included at option 2.2.

• Some residents had made it clear that they chose to live on the Barbican as a result of the restrictive covenants contained in the leases in respect of pets and wooden flooring as it gave them peace of mind.

• The importance of pets as company for some elderly residents and wooden flooring in controlling allergies

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

Members received a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services in respect of Lease Enforcements, which would seek a steer from the RCC to the BRC on how best to take this forward.  The Assistant Director advised that the extensive consultation, which had taken place since Members received the last report in September, had formulated the 3 options as set out in the report:

·       Option 1 – Strict enforcement of the Lease for all future cases

·       Option 2 – Formal adoption of current practice for all future cases

·       Option 3 – Strict enforcement of the Lease in all cases

Members were reminded that the RCC had no decision-making powers but acted as a consultation committee to the BRC.  The Town Clerk advised that, as was usual practice, the BRC would receive the draft minutes from this meeting at their next meeting on 11 December.  The Chairman explained that each Member would be invited to express their views, on behalf of their house groups and he would then call a vote on each of the 3 opinions.    Members would be able to abstain if they preferred. 

During the discussion, the following points were raised/noted:

In the case of Option 1, if the tenant and circumstances were to change, this would be taken into consideration.

New tenants would be made aware of the Conditions of the Lease when questions were raised by their Solicitors as the relevant clause states that tenants must carpet all floors in the premises from wall to wall.

The interpretation of ‘no business whatsoever’ had been applied literally in the case of Air BnB lets, which had been strongly supported by the Barbican residents and been the subject of a decision by the BRC in 2015. 

Many Leases contained wording that was 30 or 40 years