brightncheerful wrote:Presupposing the lease contains an assignment clause and presupposing your solicitor has formally requested the freeholder's consent for licence to assign and presupposing that consent cannot be unreasonably withheld, your solicitor should avail of Landlord and Tenant Act 1988 and remind the agents that the freeholder would be liable for damages in tort if the purchaser withdraws by reason of the agents delay.
This is not the situation. What you are referring to is, perhaps understandably, only usually relevant to commercial leases.
The vast majority of residential leases do
not require the landlord's consent to assign, and there is no evidence from the OP's post that it's required here.
The problem in this case is the all too common one that the managing agents are delaying the sale by failing to supply information needed by the buyer / their solicitor. It's nothing to do with consent to an assignment of the lease, so the 1988 Act has no application.
Unfortunately, manco's are notorious for doing a lousy job very expensively, and there have been widespread complaints about this problem -
https://www.mlplaw.co.uk/selling-leaseh ... t-company/However, in practical terms there's not an awful lot you can do about it, though your solicitor might email them to say that the sale's in danger of falling through because of their delay and that if it does you will sue them. Sadly, such a threat is - as they will probably realise - largely empty, and as they probably receive such threats on a daily basis it's unlikely to make any difference.
Sometimes sheer harassment works - ringing them every half hour, for example. But make sure you do it yourself, rather than delegating it to your solicitors who may well charge £25 per phone call!