Blocks of flats · freeholds · portfolios
Selling a whole block is a legal process with a clock in it. We price around the clock.
Tenanted or empty, EWS1 or not, six flats or sixty. One buyer, one contract, one completion date in writing — and the Section 5 process handled properly, because the shortcut is a criminal offence and we don’t take it.
The Section 5 clock — tap it through
Tap each number. This is the legal timetable between “we’ve agreed a price” and completion on most blocks — and why any buyer promising to skip it is a buyer to report, not hire.
1The notice you can’t skip
Two or more flats held by qualifying tenants, and more than half the flats on long leases: the building has a right of first refusal. Disposing without serving Section 5 notices is a criminal offence — company officers can be personally liable, and the tenants can even force a buyer who ignored it to sell to them at the price paid. Any buyer who suggests completing quietly is volunteering you for the dock.
2The two-month clock
Notices go to at least 90% of qualifying tenants, and the acceptance window runs at least two months from the latest-served notice. Nothing shortens it. What a serious buyer does is price knowing the clock exists — our figure goes in writing and holds while it runs.
3Two more months if they accept
If tenants accept by Section 6 notice, a further period of up to two months follows while they nominate a purchaser. In most blocks it never happens — but the timetable has to be built into the contract, not discovered by it. We set completion around the statutory dates, in writing.
4When the clock doesn’t apply
Mixed-use buildings where the residential part is under half the internal floor area sit outside the Act, and some disposals are exempt. Which side of the line your building falls on is a question for your solicitor before anything is signed — we’ll wait for that answer rather than work around it.
Source: Gaby Hardwicke, The Right of First Refusal (s5 Notice). General information, not legal advice — Section 5 compliance is your solicitor’s call, and we build the sale around it. Last reviewed August 2026.
“Break it up and sell the flats one by one.” Here’s that advice, taken seriously.
On a clean, mortgageable block it’s often the top-money answer — and if you have the years, do it. What it actually involves: one conveyance per flat, one buyer’s lender per flat, and the whole programme hostage to whatever the building’s paperwork looks like — an EWS1 lenders will accept, service-charge accounts buyers’ solicitors will pass, a management company in good order. One flat falling through doesn’t end the programme; it just adds another season to it.
The block that can’t do this — cladding unresolved, leases short, tenants in place, accounts in a shoebox — is exactly the block that suits a single-contract sale. One buyer, one set of enquiries, one completion date, rent yours until the day it completes.
Your three honest routes
Including the two that don’t involve us.
Break-up and sell individually
The most money on a clean block with time behind it. Right when the building’s paperwork is lender-ready and you can carry the programme for the years it takes.
Each flat brings its own buyer, lender and survey; cladding or lease issues stall the lot; and the last few flats are always the slowest. Meanwhile the block still has to be managed.
Investment agent or auction
A commercial investment agent reaches the yield buyers; auction gives a date and genuine competition. Both are real routes for stabilised, well-papered blocks.
Agency runs quarters, not weeks, and marketing alerts your tenants. Auction fixes the date but not the price — and an unsold lot is publicly unsold, which follows the building around.
Want to try auction first? Ask us for an introduction
We keep a short list of traditional auction houses we rate — no modern-method buyer-fee traps. They pay us a small introduction fee if you sell with them, and we’d rather tell you that than pretend the recommendation is free. If they beat our offer, take theirs. New to auctions? See how auctions actually work. Say “auction introduction” when Sophie calls, or ask on 0191 249 3969.
Sell whole, to us, on one date
One contract for the whole building, tenanted or empty, priced on yield and evidence shown in writing. Section 5 handled properly; tenants not contacted before exchange; rent yours to completion.
The price is an investment price, below a perfect break-up outcome — that’s the honest trade for one certain completion instead of a multi-year programme. The evidence comes with the offer.
The certain route: one date in a contract, £500 a day on us if we miss it, and a building that stops being your job on a day you chose.
The questions block owners ask
Do I have to offer the block to the leaseholders first?
Can you buy with tenants in place?
The block is stuck on cladding / EWS1. Does that stop you?
How is a block priced — the ladder on your other pages?
The buying desk
Blocks, portfolios and commercial buildings are priced on the asset — yield and comparable evidence, shown in writing. The residential percentage ladder on this site doesn’t apply here, and we won’t pretend it does.