Customer case study · LEASE-iQ
From repair responsibilities and shared-ownership consent to complex sales enquiries: how Eastlight uses LEASE-iQ to investigate, challenge and explain.
A leak into a shop beneath a block of flats. A repairs policy that may not match the lease. A shared owner asking whether staircasing to 100% brings the freehold with it. These are the questions behind a housing team’s everyday correspondence.
Eastlight Community Homes provides around 15,000 homes in the East of England, including homes for rent and shared ownership. A paying LEASE-iQ customer, its Leasehold Services Team uses the product to interrogate agreements and prepare responses for leaseholders and shared owners. Eastlight’s published profile ↗
“Our Leasehold Services Team have been using this to interrogate leases to assist with sales enquiries and composing letters to leaseholders or shared owners about details from their leases and it has been incredibly helpful - it references back to the part of the lease it refers to, so we are able to do human checks to ensure its interpreting correctly.”Leasehold Services Team, Eastlight Community Homes
The practical value is in the work between the question and the reply: finding relevant wording, testing a different interpretation, identifying the next question for a specialist and drafting a response the colleague can check. In the early pilot, colleagues reported less time studying leases, new perspectives and useful letter drafting. Experience varied as people learned the tool; no organisation-wide time or financial saving has been measured here.
The real work
Different enquiries call for different outputs: a draft letter, a clearer distinction, a list of checks or a focused question for legal advice.
Guttering, an initial repair period and a repairs allowance raised connected questions: who maintains it, can the cost be recovered, and does the allowance apply?
The team used LEASE-iQ to examine the repair obligation, definitions and charging provisions together. That brought a possible mismatch with the policy described by the colleague into focus for checking before action.
A communal heating question produced different answers depending on whether the question concerned the boiler room, the heating equipment or the organisation’s role under the headlease.
Colleagues challenged the answers and clarified that Eastlight was the tenant under that agreement. The review separated the premises from the services and identified competing provisions needing a definitive view. Their feedback also exposed a product improvement: make the parties explicit.
Water was leaking into a commercial unit below flats, and the source flat had not been identified. The team needed to consider both the communal stopcock and access to individual homes.
They explored the lease provisions relevant to isolating water and entering the flats. The question joined up repair responsibility, rights of access and the practical facts needed before intervention.
A shared owner wanted to know whether reaching full ownership meant the freehold would transfer to them.
The colleague brought the resident’s question into LEASE-iQ and asked it to draft a response. This connected the ownership question with the particular agreement and turned the investigation into correspondence for the team to check.
A shared owner’s EV-charger request required checking whether the parking space formed part of the property covered by their lease.
The team explored the property boundary and consent position, then asked for a letter explaining the response. The draft still needed review against the documents and the facts before a decision was communicated.
Questions about a demised loft developed into whether insulation was structural, how the building envelope mattered, and who was responsible for a water tank and restrictions on removing it.
The team used follow-up questions to test a different way of looking at the repair obligation and ask what evidence or legal authority supported it. In the pilot check-in, a colleague described the value of a perspective they had not considered.
A complex sales enquiry had left the team unsure what route might be available.
LEASE-iQ surfaced a forfeiture provision as a possible option the colleague had not considered. The team took the idea for legal validation. The useful output was a specific question for specialist advice, not an automatic decision to use that route.
Different leases raised questions about licences to assign, deeds of covenant, registered lenders, surrender and re-grant, fees and restrictions.
Colleagues checked the relevant requirements lease by lease. The usage record includes an assignment audit across nine leases. This was repeated work on individual documents; asking one question across a selected group of leases is a coming feature.
A service-charge complaint raised the difference between the total block cost and a home’s percentage contribution, including how the lease described the property.
The team investigated the contribution basis and the information that could help explain the charge to the leaseholder. Separate questions also explored major-works charging and the use of reserve funds.
A request to remove a pull-cord system led to questions about consent, removal without permission, whether equipment had to remain and whether a service-charge contribution continued.
The colleague used a sequence of questions to examine the physical alteration and the payment obligation separately, rather than assuming that removing equipment also removed the contractual charge.
Other requests included an external air-conditioning unit, solar panels, moving a shed and raised loft boarding.
Colleagues explored consent requirements and property boundaries. A solar-panel question checked a transfer as well as the lease. The loft-boarding conversation considered technical approval, information needed from the shared owner and a draft customer email.
A complaint supported by diary sheets required the team to consider its housing-association and freeholder roles.
The colleague asked what the lease said about the behaviour and what the next steps should be. This is an example of bringing a live complaint to the governing document while retaining the evidence and judgement needed for any action.
Even after the lease question has been explored, somebody still has to write a clear reply to the customer.
Eastlight colleagues used LEASE-iQ to draft letters, adjust the tone and add relevant references. In the pilot check-in, a colleague described doing this within the same programme. The team’s account confirms use for sales enquiries and letters to leaseholders and shared owners, with human source checks.
“At Eastlight, we're always interested in exploring new ways of working that help us deliver a better service for customers and make the best use of our colleagues' time. LEASE-iQ has helped our teams access lease information more efficiently, while maintaining the human oversight and professional judgement that remain essential to good customer outcomes.”Charlotte Todd, Chief Property Officer, Eastlight Community Homes Limited
These anonymised examples come from customer feedback and usage records from July to September 2026. They show work undertaken and next steps, not a claim that every answer was correct or every case resolved. Lease interpretation, technical facts and any action still need appropriate human review. LEASE-iQ provides information, not legal advice.
Coming next: upload and tag multiple leases, then ask questions across a selected group. Rental agreements are also coming, alongside expanded legislation for rental and shared-ownership questions. The examples here describe existing individual-document use; supported agreements and jurisdictions will be confirmed at release.
Use the words you would use with a neighbour. I will suggest the closest page I can match.
This guide only matches your words to pages on this website. It does not read your lease or give legal advice. Do not paste names, addresses, lease wording or payment details.