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User Guide

Get real answers from your lease in 4 minutes.

LEASE-iQ reads your lease and answers questions about it, cited against the actual clauses. Here's how to get the most out of it, whether you're a leaseholder, director, managing agent, or landlord.

⏱ 4-minute read · Last updated 14 April 2026
Step 1

Before you upload: make sure it's actually a lease.

LEASE-iQ is purpose-built for lease documents: the long-form deed that sets out what you can do with your flat, what service charges you pay, and how decisions are made. It's not designed for title registers, articles of association, or generic AST tenancy agreements. Upload the wrong document and the answers will be wrong (or LEASE-iQ will tell you it can't find what you're asking about).

This IS your lease

  • 99-year / 125-year / 999-year term stated on page 1
  • Names "Landlord" (or "Lessor") and "Tenant" (or "Lessee")
  • Has clauses on service charge, ground rent, repairs
  • Has a demised premises plan (usually coloured)
  • Often 30–80 pages long

This is NOT your lease

  • Land Registry "Title Register" (TR1), 1–3 pages
  • Articles of Association of your management company
  • Conveyancer's report on title
  • Service charge demand or budget
  • TA6/TA10 property-sale form
  • Short-term tenancy (AST) agreement

Where to find your lease

  1. Your conveyancer's file. The PDF they sent when you bought the flat. Usually named something like "Lease.pdf" or "Official Copy of Title.pdf".
  2. Land Registry. Order an Official Copy of your lease for £3. Takes about 15 minutes.
  3. Your freeholder or managing agent. They're obliged to give you a copy on request under s.98 Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.
  4. Paper original. Take clear photos of every page on your phone; LEASE-iQ accepts image uploads.
Why this matters. One of our early users ran a service-charge question through NotebookLM and Claude with a title register (not a lease), and got a confident answer that was completely wrong. LEASE-iQ catches this on upload, but you save time and money by giving it the right document first.
Step 2

What to ask. Pick your persona and starter prompts.

LEASE-iQ works best when you ask concrete, lease-grounded questions. Here are starter prompts by role. Click the tab that fits you, then copy a prompt straight into LEASE-iQ to get going.

Leaseholder starter prompts

You own your flat on a long lease. Most of your questions come down to two things: can I do this? and is what I'm being charged fair?

Service charge reasonableness
"What services does my lease say my service charge covers? List each category with the exact clause reference."
Follow-up: "Is there anything in this list that's unusually broad or vague?"
Pets
"Does my lease permit pets? Quote the exact clause and tell me if consent is required."
Follow-up: "If consent is needed, what's the process for requesting it?"
Subletting
"Am I allowed to sublet my flat? Are short-term lets (e.g. Airbnb) permitted or is this limited to ASTs only?"
Follow-up: "What consent or notification is the freeholder entitled to before I sublet?"
Alterations
"What alterations need freeholder consent under my lease? Does that include internal non-structural work like kitchens or bathrooms?"
Follow-up: "What's the process for applying for a Licence to Alter?"
Ground rent
"What's my ground rent under this lease, and is there an escalation clause? If so, when does it next increase and by how much?"
Follow-up: "Is this lease caught by the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022?"
Repairs & disrepair
"Which party is responsible for the external walls, roof, windows, and common parts under my lease?"
Follow-up: "If the freeholder is not fulfilling their repair covenants, what remedies does the lease give me?"

Director starter prompts

You're a director of an RTM company, Share of Freehold company, or RMC. Your questions usually centre on: what can we charge, what do we have to do, and how do we handle a dispute.

Recoverable costs
"Under this lease, what costs can the landlord/RTM company recover from leaseholders through the service charge?"
Follow-up: "Are management fees, reserve fund contributions, and professional advice costs explicitly recoverable?"
Section 20 trigger
"What types of works under this lease would trigger a Section 20 consultation under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985?"
Follow-up: "What's the three-stage consultation process I need to follow and what notices do I need to serve?"
Reserve fund
"Does my lease permit the collection of a reserve/sinking fund? Quote the exact clause and tell me any restrictions."
Follow-up: "Can reserve funds be used for works not itemised in advance?"
Apportionment
"How are service charges apportioned between flats under this lease? Is it equal share, floor area, or variable?"
Follow-up: "Can this apportionment be varied, and if so under what process?"
Arrears recovery
"What remedies does this lease give me against a leaseholder in service charge arrears? Does it include forfeiture?"
Follow-up: "Before forfeiture, what notice must be served (e.g. s.146 LPA 1925)?"
Insurance obligations
"What insurance does the lease require the landlord/RMC to hold, and what does it require the leaseholders to hold?"
Follow-up: "Does the lease allow commission on insurance to be recovered through the service charge?"

Managing agent starter prompts

You're acting for a freeholder or RMC across multiple blocks. Your questions centre on compliance, recoverability, and quick answers to leaseholder queries that would otherwise take a morning to research.

Demand compliance
"Under this lease, what are the formal requirements for a service charge demand to be valid? Consider s.47/48 L&TA 1987 and s.21B L&TA 1985."
Follow-up: "If demands have been served without the s.21B summary, can the charges still be recovered?"
Budget vs actual
"What does the lease say about how on-account service charges are reconciled to actual costs at year-end?"
Follow-up: "If actual costs exceed the budget, is there a cap or a statutory process to recover the difference?"
Clause taxonomy
"Extract all key clauses from this lease and classify them: demised premises, repair obligations, service charge, rent provisions, alienation, forfeiture, insurance, alterations."
Follow-up: "Compare against a typical modern lease. What's unusual here?"
Major works notice
"Draft the content requirements for a Section 20 Notice of Intention for [describe works] under this lease, including who receives it and the consultation period."
Follow-up: "What are the most common grounds for a leaseholder to challenge this at the First-tier Tribunal?"
Specific leaseholder query
"A leaseholder has asked: '[paste their query]'. Answer it grounded in this specific lease, with clause references I can share back with them."
Follow-up: "Is there statutory context they should know about? For example BSA 2022 or the RICS SC Code 4th edition?"

Landlord / freeholder starter prompts

You're the freeholder or a long-lease investor. Your questions centre on enforcement, value, and the long-horizon implications of lease terms.

Enforcement rights
"What remedies does this lease give me against a leaseholder in breach of covenant? Include forfeiture, damages, specific performance, and injunctive relief."
Follow-up: "What notice must I serve before pursuing forfeiture under s.146 LPA 1925?"
Alienation control
"What does this lease require of leaseholders when they assign, sublet, or charge the lease? What fees and consents am I entitled to?"
Follow-up: "Are there Building Safety Act 2022 implications for subletting that I need to surface?"
Lease extension / enfranchisement risk
"Based on this lease (term length, ground rent, extension clauses), what's the statutory lease extension / enfranchisement exposure for this flat?"
Follow-up: "How might the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 change the premium I'd receive?"
Defects in the lease
"Identify any drafting defects, ambiguities, or unusually favourable clauses for the leaseholder in this lease that I should be aware of."
Follow-up: "Which of these are worth fixing at lease extension, and which are not worth the negotiation battle?"
Already know your problem? The "What brought you here?" grid on the homepage is a shortcut. Each card drops you on a dedicated guide. Start with water leaks, subletting, pets, lease extension, service charges, and more. Each has prompts and template letters tuned to that scenario. Copy a prompt from there straight into LEASE-iQ and you'll save a round of context-setting.
Step 3

Read the answer. What each part means.

Every LEASE-iQ answer is generated by a multi-pass 10-juror consensus model: 10 independent AI responses, filtered to 5 strong candidates, judged by 3 independent reviewers. The final answer you see has three parts. Here's how to read each one.

Direct answer
The plain-English yes/no/it-depends response to your question. Read this first, then check the clause citation before acting. If the answer begins with "It depends on...", always read the caveat.
Clause cited
The specific clause number and verbatim wording from your lease that supports the answer. If there's no clause cited, treat the answer as a general explanation rather than a lease-grounded conclusion.
Statutory context
Any relevant statute (Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, Building Safety Act 2022, Leasehold Reform Acts, etc.) that overrides or qualifies the lease term. Statute often trumps clause. For example, forfeiture clauses are heavily limited by s.146 LPA 1925.

If you want a letter, a notice, or a structured response, ask for it directly. LEASE-iQ will draft it grounded in the clauses and statute it has already surfaced in the conversation.

Step 4

What to do next. Turn an answer into action.

LEASE-iQ gives you the lease-grounded answer. The website has the templates, guides, and tools to act on it. Here are the most common hand-offs.

Challenge a service charge

Template letter to your managing agent or freeholder, benchmark ranges by category, and the statutory test for reasonableness.

Open the service charge guide →

Run a service charge health check

Benchmark your actual service charge per sqft against national data, split by cost category.

Run the health check →

Estimate a lease extension premium

Use the estimator to get a rough premium figure, plus the s.42 / s.48 statutory process.

Open the estimator →

Handle a water leak

Who pays for what, how the insurance process works, and the template letters to get it moving.

Read the water-leak playbook →

Sublet or let compliantly

What your lease typically permits, the sublet consent process, and Building Safety Act 2022 duties for landlords.

Read the subletting guide →

Run a compliance audit

Six questions covering all 21 statutory obligations for residential blocks. Produces a risk-rated summary.

Run the audit →

Director compliance checklist

Full 21-obligation guide with penalty ranges for directors of RTM, SoF, and RMC companies.

Open the checklist →

Move to BLOCK-iQ

Track compliance across your entire block, manage service charge demands, and generate board-ready reports.

See the platform →
Step 5

Watch-outs. What LEASE-iQ is and isn't for.

LEASE-iQ is an intelligence tool that accelerates your thinking. It isn't a solicitor and it isn't a court. Here's where to be careful.

Always verify before you act on money or notices. For anything involving money paid out, formal notices served, or tribunal applications, always get a solicitor's opinion before acting. Use LEASE-iQ to prepare the solicitor meeting. You'll cut their time, and your bill, dramatically.
LEASE-iQ answers what's in your lease. For questions that aren't lease-specific, such as your statutory rights under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the Building Safety Act 2022, or Tribunal procedure, use the guides on this site or LEASE (the government body). LEASE-iQ will pull the statute in when it's relevant, but if your question is purely statutory, the guides are often faster.
Try it on a real question. Use your first lease question on something you actually need to know. While we're in pilot, usage stays free, so follow up as many times as you need to work the problem through.

Ready to try it on your lease?

One question free. While we're in pilot, it stays free. Adam sets up your workspace within 24 hours of signup.

Request LEASE-iQ access →