Guidance for Owners

If you plan to dispose of your asset through a freehold sale or the grant/assignment of a qualifying lease (i.e. originally granted for at least 25 yrs), please complete the Section 95 Form we sent you along with the decision notice to list the asset. You can also download the form from our website. Send the signed form to the Community Team to officially notify us of your intention to dispose of the asset.

You are legally obliged to notify the Council of this. Once we have been notified, we will calculate the moratorium periods. This calculation is based on the date we receive notification and inform the community of your intention to dispose of the asset.

What happens once I have notified the Council of my intention to dispose?

Unless an exemption applies you will now only be able to dispose of your asset after a specified window has expired.

The first window is a period of 6 weeks, i.e. the Interim Moratorium period. This time allows community interest groups to express an interest in bidding for your asset.

If a written request is received by a valid community interest group, the moratorium period will be extended to be 6 months in total. If no request is received, the moratorium will end after the initial 6 weeks and you will be able to sell to whomever you choose.

The full moratorium is designed to give local community groups time to raise the funds to purchase the asset. During this period you are allowed to market the property and negotiate sales, but you cannot exchange contracts or enter into a binding contract to do so later. The only exception to this, is that you may sell to a community interest group during the moratorium period.

Following the moratorium period you will be free to sell to whomever you choose. Please note that if you feel you have incurred loss or expense as a result of the asset being listed you have a right to claim compensation for this loss/expense.

If your asset/land is still on the market after 18 months of you notifying us of the sale, a new moratorium period will commence, and the above process will begin again.

Can a sale ever be exempt from the moratorium period?

A 'relevant disposal' means the transfer of the freehold or grant or assignment of a qualifying lease, which gives vacant possession of the buildings and other land in question. However some forms of disposal are exempt from the Community Right to Bid process. If you are confident that the transfer you are contemplating will fall into one of the following (or listed) exemptions, you will not need to notify the council of your intention to sell.

The main exemptions are:

1. Disposals which are gifts
2. Disposals by personal representatives in accordance with the will of the deceased owner
3. Disposal to a family member
4. Sale of the land, on which a business is carried on, together with the sale of that business as a going concern
5. Disposal of land under bankruptcy proceedings

For a full list of exemptions please contact the Community Team.

How is the moratorium enforced?

The moratorium is enforced by a restriction placed with Land Registry. To prevent enforcement action (that is, the cancellation of a transfer), when a new owner applies to the Land Registry to register a change of ownership of a listed asset, they will need to provide the Land Registry with a certificate from the Council's solicitor that the disposal did not contravene the moratorium requirements.

If a non-compliant disposal of a listed asset occurs, the transfer will be 'void', meaning that the change of ownership will not have occurred. If the transfer has been registered on the Land Register in error, it will still be void, and would have to be rectified. This penalty will not apply if the owner was unaware through no fault of their own that the land was listed when it was sold.

Owners are encouraged to seek independent legal advice on these points.