From a 1950s council block to 16 homes. Then the real work started.
Adam Street's grandmother was one of the first council tenants at 4 to 8 Hafer Road when the post-war block opened in 1957. His parents later bought the flat under Right to Buy. Years later, Adam looked at the ageing block and came up with an idea that most people thought was insane: get all eight neighbours together, demolish the building, and rebuild it. Twice the size, 16 homes instead of 8, selling the extras to fund the whole thing.
They did it. Peter Barber Architects designed the new building. A 6 year project from acquiring the freehold to completing the build. The original block was 6,000 square feet. The new building: 16,350 square feet, 16 bespoke homes with roof gardens, courtyard houses, and balconies. Self-managed from day one.
Evening Standard → · RIBA Journal → · Community Led Housing London → · Peter Barber Architects →
During works. Stripping the old roof.
Completed. Solar panels, Battersea skyline.
Then came the part nobody warns you about. Running the building.
A defective roof. A 28-month fight with an insurer. 2,600 hours logged. 576K eventually recovered. No solicitors, no legal fees. Two leaseholders who let their structural warranty lapse when their insurer went bust. When the repair bill arrived, one paid. The other instructed a solicitor and fought it. A £26,000 dispute where both sides used AI to interpret the lease. Both got it wrong. One had a lawyer to catch it. The freeholder got lucky.
Not because it was the biggest number. But because before any of that. Before the dispute, before the recovery. There was the Section 20 processSection 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires freeholders to consult leaseholders before qualifying works exceeding £250 per leaseholder. Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, s.20. Statutory consultation notices. The correct sequencing. The right form of words. The deadlines that, if missed, can mean losing the right to recover costs from leaseholders entirely. Get it wrong and the 576K you fought for becomes unrecoverable. The legal obligations sit on the directors, unpaid, on top of their actual jobs. And they are the same whether your building has 2 leaseholders or 200.
We built LEASE-iQ because we had lived the full weight of what running a building actually costs. In time, in money, in health, in relationships. And because the gap between getting it right and getting it wrong is just as large for a small block as it is for a large one.
This should not require 2,600 hours. It should not require a lawyer on retainer. It should not require luck.
That is what we are here to change.