Leasehold flats: what your lease bans, licences aside

Scope: England and Wales. Leasehold is a contractual regime, so your own lease governs — this sets out what to look for in it. Verified against the legislation on 14 August 2026.

Compliance articles answer the question "what does the law require of me". If you own a leasehold flat there is a second question with a different answer: what does your lease forbid.

You can hold a licence, every certificate, and a perfectly drafted tenancy agreement, and still be in breach — because the restriction is contractual and the statutes do not override it.

The clauses that catch landlords

An absolute bar on subletting

Some leases prohibit subletting outright. There is no application to make and no consent to obtain: letting the flat at all breaches the lease. This is uncommon in modern long leases and not rare in older ones.

A qualified bar — consent required

Far more common: subletting is permitted with the landlord's consent. Where the lease says consent is not to be unreasonably withheld, the freeholder cannot simply refuse — but you still have to ask, and letting first and asking later is itself the breach.

Notice and registration fees

Most leases require you to notify the freeholder or managing agent of a sublet, often within a set period, and to pay a fee for registering it. Missing this is the commonest breach of all because it feels administrative rather than legal.

Restrictions on the letting itself

Look for clauses on:

• Minimum term — many leases prohibit lettings shorter than six months, which is aimed squarely at short-term and holiday letting.
• Occupation as a single private dwelling — a common clause, and one that an HMO letting can breach even where the council is content to licence it.
• Business use, which some rent-to-rent arrangements engage.
• Pets — see below, because this one has changed.

The pet request problem

The right to request a pet means you must consider a tenant's request and may only refuse it reasonably. If your own lease forbids pets, that is a reasonable ground to refuse — you cannot lawfully grant what you do not have.

Check the lease before answering, and say so in the refusal. "My lease prohibits it" is a reason; "no pets" is not.

What a breach actually costs

Three escalating consequences:

1. Costs. Freeholders commonly charge for retrospective consent and for their legal costs, and many leases make those costs recoverable from you.
2. An injunction requiring the breach to stop — which for a subletting breach means ending the tenancy, and after the abolition of section 21 you need a ground to do that. Being ordered to end a tenancy you have no ground to end is a genuinely difficult position.
3. Forfeiture — the ultimate remedy, ending the lease. It is procedurally constrained and relief is usually available, but the threat drives settlements.

A breach can also make the flat harder to sell or remortgage, because the buyer's conveyancer will ask for the consent you do not have — see selling a tenanted property.

Before you let a leasehold flat

• Read the alienation clause — the one dealing with assignment, subletting and parting with possession.
• Apply for consent in writing if the lease requires it, and keep the reply.
• Serve any notice of sublet and pay the registration fee.
• Check the minimum term and any single-dwelling restriction against what you are actually doing.
• Then deal with the statutory duties — the full checklist.

Run the free compliance check for the statutory side. The lease is the part only you can read.