Do you qualify? The RTM eligibility rules explained

Right to Manage gives leaseholders in England the legal power to take over the management of their building — without having to prove the freeholder has done anything wrong. But not every building qualifies, and not every group of leaseholders meets the threshold. Before you take a single step, it is worth knowing where you stand.

What is RTM eligibility, and why does it matter?

The right to manage eligibility rules come from the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. They set out who can claim, what kind of building qualifies, and how many leaseholders need to get involved. Meeting these rules is not a formality — the freeholder can challenge a claim that does not comply, and a flawed notice can set your whole process back to square one.

If you are new to RTM and want to understand the full picture before drilling into eligibility, our plain-English introduction to Right to Manage is a good place to start.

Does your building qualify?

The first question is about the building itself, not the people in it. To qualify, the building must be:

• Self-contained. It must be a self-contained building or a self-contained part of a building — meaning it has its own structure and services, independent of the rest. A block of flats that shares a structural wall with another building, or whose services cannot sensibly be separated, may not pass this test.
• Primarily residential. At least two-thirds of the building's floor space must be in residential use. If your block has commercial units on the ground floor, offices, or other non-residential space, add up the floor areas carefully. If non-residential space accounts for more than one-third of the total, the building does not qualify.
• Containing at least two flats. A single conversion — one house turned into two flats — can still qualify, as long as it meets the other conditions.

Who counts as a qualifying tenant?

Not every flat owner in the building automatically counts. A qualifying tenant is a leaseholder whose lease was originally granted for more than 21 years. Most long residential leases — 99-year, 125-year or 999-year leases — will meet this test comfortably. Short-term tenants and periodic tenants do not count at all.

There is one important exclusion: if a leaseholder owns three or more flats in the same building, they cannot be a qualifying tenant for any of those flats.

The two-thirds participation rule

This is the rule that catches the most buildings out. To proceed with an RTM claim, the RTM company must have the support of at least two-thirds of the qualifying tenants in the building.

Here is how that works in practice. Say your block has 12 flats, all on qualifying long leases. You need at least 8 of those leaseholders to become members of the RTM company before you serve the claim notice. If only 7 sign up, the claim fails — regardless of how motivated those 7 are, or how poor the current management is.

This is why early conversations with neighbours matter so much. You need to know your numbers before you commit to the formal process.

The exceptions that catch people out

Even if your building and your leaseholders look like they tick every box, a small number of exceptions can block a claim:

• Resident landlord exception. If the freeholder lives in the building and the building has no more than four flats, the RTM route is not available. This exception exists because in very small buildings the freeholder is effectively a fellow resident, and the power balance is different.
• Conversion buildings with a resident freeholder. Similar rules apply to converted buildings (rather than purpose-built blocks) where the original house contained no more than four flats and the freeholder or an adult member of their family has lived there since before the conversion.
• Local authority landlords. Where the freeholder is a local authority, the right to manage does not apply.
• Buildings under ongoing insolvency proceedings. Certain insolvency situations affecting the current manager can also affect eligibility.

None of these exceptions are widely known, and it is easy to assume they do not apply without checking. They are worth ruling out explicitly before you spend time organising your neighbours.

Common reasons a claim fails before it starts

Most failed RTM claims come down to one of a few avoidable problems:

• Not enough qualifying tenants signed up before the notice is served
• The RTM company is formed incorrectly, or the notice contains a procedural error
• The non-residential floor space threshold is exceeded and nobody checked
• The building turns out not to be self-contained in the legal sense
• A resident landlord exception applies and the leaseholders did not know

These are not obscure technicalities — they are the basis on which freeholders routinely serve counter-notices. Getting the groundwork right is the difference between a claim that goes through and one that stalls for months.

For a clear picture of what happens once you have confirmed eligibility and are ready to proceed, our step-by-step guide to the RTM process walks you through every stage from forming your company to taking over management.

How to check your own building

Reading a guide like this one is a useful starting point, but it cannot tell you whether your specific building qualifies. Floor space measurements, lease lengths, headcounts and freeholder status all need to be checked against your own circumstances.

Our RTM Eligibility Checker takes you through the key questions for your building and gives you a clear read on where you stand — before you commit to anything. It is free to use, takes a few minutes, and could save you a great deal of time later.