Every question, answered openly.

The RTM subgroup of the Embassy Gardens Residents' Association (EGRA), leaseholders who live in or own at the estate, working with specialist advisers as appointments are made. It is independent of the freeholder and the managing agent.

Questions go to info@egra.org.uk. Director profiles, with declarations of interests, will be published as appointments are confirmed.

Building support. The first priority is a strong community mandate, building by building, towards 50% plus one in each. Once a building reaches around 35% committed support, its RTM company will be established, RTM directors identified and governance preparations begun. An independent RTM consultant will be appointed as momentum builds and there is sufficient support and funding to progress confidently, professional advisers add the greatest value when there is a realistic prospect of success.

Alongside this, EGRA continues constructive discussions with Ballymore and the freeholders on longer-term opportunities including shared estate management, Option 4 and enfranchisement. Every milestone will be announced the same day on the News page.

Right to Manage (RTM) is a legal right under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 that allows qualifying leaseholders to take over the management of their building without buying the freehold.

The freeholder continues to own the estate. RTM changes who manages it.

Embassy Gardens has grown into one of London's premier residential developments with extensive shared facilities, significant service charge expenditure and a diverse community of residents and investors.

RTM offers leaseholders the opportunity to strengthen governance, improve transparency and have greater oversight of the professional management of the estate.

No. Embassy Gardens remains a distinctive and highly valued development, and this campaign exists to keep it that way. It reflects leaseholders' wish to protect its long-term quality through clearer governance, earlier financial scrutiny and professional accountability.

No. Same building, same professionals, new boss: the residents. Professional managing agents, engineers, surveyors, contractors and estate staff continue to play a vital role.

RTM changes who oversees the management, not who carries out the day-to-day work.

No. Maintaining a premium development requires proper, continued investment. The objective is to ensure that expenditure is well planned, competitively procured, clearly reported and aligned with the buildings' long-term needs, not to cut for cutting's sake.

No. It's not a protest, it's a right. RTM is no-fault: nothing has to be proved against anyone, and if the qualifying criteria are met the tribunal must grant it.

Since the 2024 reforms took effect, the freeholder's routine legal costs are no longer recoverable from leaseholders, so exercising the right does not expose us to their legal bill.

No. The campaign is not based on allegations of unlawful conduct or personal criticism, and every figure we publish comes from the estate's own signed accounts, with no suggestion of impropriety. Leaseholders are simply seeking a governance structure that gives the people who fund the buildings a direct role in how they are managed.

Then keep them. Under RTM, residents can retain any agent who performs. The difference is that the agent would finally answer to the people paying for the service.

Joining takes two minutes and carries no obligations. The volunteers and, in due course, the appointed solicitors do the rest.

For overseas owners, everything can be handled remotely, registration, updates and eventually membership, all through embassygardens-rtm.com.

You still benefit: a better-run building means more responsive management for the repairs and services that affect your daily life.

The single most useful thing you can do is forward embassygardens-rtm.com to your landlord or letting agent, the law counts leaseholders, and many of them are hard to reach.

Yes, including one a short walk along the river. Chelsea Bridge Wharf (ten blocks, more than 1,100 flats, mixed-use) was confirmed as the UK's largest RTM by the First-tier Tribunal in January 2025, and Century Wharf in Cardiff (19 buildings, three RTM companies) has been resident-run for over a decade. Settlers Court in east London shows the boundary of the right, its block RTM succeeded, but the Supreme Court confirmed in 2022 that shared estate facilities stay with the estate manager, which is exactly the limit our plan is built around.

Read the three case studies in full, all matters of public record.

Honestly: a contribution of £170 per apartment to the shared RTM Fund, 12 months or more of community effort, and a handful of neighbours volunteering as directors and Building RTM Champions. That's the whole catch.

And one honest limit: RTM transfers the management of the buildings, not ownership or the shared estate facilities, those remain matters for future negotiation with the freeholders. A clear budget will be published before any significant expenditure is committed.

Yes. Support and money are two different things. If service-charge arrears, timing or personal circumstances mean you can't contribute the £170 today, you can still register your support so your building's mandate reflects it, and contribute later when it suits you.

The formal process will still need funding to progress, but no one is shut out of the campaign for not paying on day one. Register your support, and speak to the team in confidence at info@egra.org.uk if it helps.

A Building Champion is simply a neighbour who helps keep their building connected, talking to nearby leaseholders, sharing the facts, introducing overseas or non-resident owners, and helping people register their support.

We're aiming for around five or six per building, and you don't need to be a legal expert or have every answer; the volunteers and, in time, the appointed advisers handle the technical side. If you can spare a little time, email info@egra.org.uk.

Yes. Being a member of the Residents' Association is not the same as registering your support for RTM. However long you've supported EGRA, your flat only counts towards your building's threshold once you register on the join page.

Registering is free, non-binding and takes about two minutes. Count your flat in.

No. RTM under the current law operates building by building: each building needs support from 50% plus one of its qualifying leaseholders, and RTM progresses building by building as each reaches the threshold. The freeholder continues to appoint their managing agent for shared estate areas.

The plan is to establish a building's RTM company once it reaches around 35% committed support, identify its RTM directors and begin governance preparations, with multiple RTM companies able to work together through shared service agreements so estate management stays seamless.

The precise legal structure will be confirmed by specialist RTM solicitors before any statutory notices are served.

Whether later phases form part of any future RTM arrangements will depend on their legal structure, ownership and integration into the wider estate. RTM is a legal right available to residential leaseholders once premises qualify.

The 2024 reforms raised the non-residential threshold for RTM to 50%, mixed-use buildings like ours now qualify provided no more than half of the floorspace is non-residential.

The precise position for each building will be confirmed by specialist RTM solicitors before any statutory notices are served.

This depends on how the buildings are legally defined for RTM purposes.

If buildings qualify separately, one building may be able to proceed independently. If several buildings form one qualifying premises, the statutory participation requirements apply to that larger area.

Potentially, yes. Because RTM works building by building, the Phase 1 buildings could move ahead even if the Phase 2 buildings haven't yet reached the numbers, and a single building could in principle progress before the others.

But no decision has been taken. Before anyone proceeds, the committee would weigh participation levels, professional legal advice, each building's share of the costs, economies of scale, the managing-agent arrangements and the knock-on for buildings not yet ready. It's a judgement made on the evidence, not a race.

It can be, but with eyes open. A single building going first could gain real control over its own management, prove RTM is achievable here, and encourage its neighbours to follow.

The trade-off is that going alone means less scale on procurement, less weight over shared estate services, and the need to stand up its own governance and professional support. The committee wouldn't recommend a building proceed without a proper look at the legal, operational and financial implications first.

Yes. Overseas leaseholders have the same rights as UK-based leaseholders.

Yes. Resident status is not a requirement.

No. RTM does not alter your lease or your ability to let your apartment in accordance with your lease.

There is no automatic impact. In general, buyers and lenders are more concerned with quality of management, building maintenance, financial transparency, building safety and long-term stewardship.

The intention is the opposite: to protect and support quality. The RTM company could appoint a suitably experienced professional managing agent and set clear expectations for service standards, maintenance and long-term planning, with performance reviewed by the people who live and invest here.

Yes. Maintaining high-quality concierge services is a priority.

Yes. Estate security remains an essential service.

Your existing rights to use them do not change. But we should be straight about the limits: RTM transfers the management of the residential buildings, not the shared estate facilities. The cinema, gyms and Sky Pool are expected to continue being managed by BAML and recharged to the RTM company.

Bringing the shared estate under community control is part of the longer-term ambition, through future discussions with the freeholders about enfranchisement or a balanced Option 4. This building/estate split comes from the Supreme Court's Settlers Court ruling, we answer it head-on here.

Leaseholders' contractual rights under their leases remain in place.

Where facilities are shared across different legal entities, appropriate management arrangements would need to be maintained to ensure services continue to operate effectively.

The expectation is that existing lease rights would continue.

Where services operate across different buildings, the RTM company (or companies) would put in place the necessary agreements to ensure continuity.

Preventative maintenance is planned work that catches wear before something fails. Reactive maintenance is what happens after it's already broken. Embassy Gardens has seen a lot of the reactive kind, and repeated emergency call-outs are expensive, disruptive and hard to track.

Under RTM the leaseholder-controlled company could require the managing agent to show what preventative work is planned, whether recurring faults have actually been investigated, whether 'temporary' fixes have quietly become permanent, and whether repeated call-outs are really value for money, shifting the estate towards long-term asset management rather than firefighting.

By putting a clear chain of responsibility behind them. For the things that keep coming back (water interruptions, heating failures, leaks, entrance doors, lifts), the RTM company could require a documented incident log: when each problem was reported, the suspected cause, who investigated it, what was done as a temporary and then a permanent repair, target dates, and escalation when the same fault returns.

RTM can't guarantee a fault never happens again, and it won't always change the cost. But it changes what you can see, and what you can hold the agent to account for.

Not on its own, and we won't pretend otherwise. RTM doesn't automatically correct original design defects or lift responsibilities that legally remain with the freeholder or developer.

What it can do is improve how those problems are managed: proper fault histories, independent technical advice where it's needed, clear identification of who is responsible, better coordination between contractors, timetabled remedial work, and the pursuit of warranties or responsible parties. Even where the underlying duty stays with Ballymore, the RTM company can provide more consistent management and follow-up.

Not necessarily. RTM changes who manages the building; it doesn't rewrite the leases or transfer every duty of the freeholder, developer, contractor, insurer or warranty provider.

Construction and latent defects, structural problems, warranty claims and defective original installations can remain the responsibility of the party that caused them, including the developer, which here is also Ballymore. What the RTM company and its managing agent take on is documenting the problem, getting the right professional advice, and pursuing whoever is responsible.

On the budgets our on-account charges are billed against, the combined Phase 1 and 2 budget rose 67.5% between 2021 and 2026, around 11% a year compounded (the annual rises were +15.7%, +17.6%, +6.9%, +4.6% and +11.6%). Measured against what the estate actually cost in 2021, the rise to the 2026 budget is 75.9%.

The average conceals a sharp phase split: Phase 1's budget rose about 32% (5.7% a year) while Phase 2's rose about 111% (16% a year), though part of the Phase 2 rise reflects developer support unwinding as the estate completes, rather than pure cost inflation.

The overshooting is not hypothetical: the FY2025 service charge accounts showed an overspend of roughly 16% against budget. Many leaseholders have understandably asked whether stronger financial oversight, procurement and contract management could have reduced the impact, and whatever view you take, we believe leaseholders should have a much stronger voice in how that money is spent.

Three caveats attach to these figures: 2026 is a budget, not an outturn, and recent budgets have been overshot; the figures exclude balancing charges, so the cash actually demanded since 2023 runs higher than the budget line suggests; and CPI over the same window was roughly 20%, meaning charges have grown at three to four times inflation however you cut it. Source: EGRA analysis of published service charge budgets and accounts, 2021–2026. Figures last updated 18 July 2026.

RTM does not guarantee lower service charges. Its purpose is to improve oversight, transparency and accountability.

Savings may arise from improved procurement or contract management, but maintaining the quality of Embassy Gardens remains the priority.

The main focus will be on controlling and containing future cost increases, given the significant service charge increases and overspend balancing charges of recent years.

Leaseholders who support the recommendation are invited to contribute £170 per apartment to the RTM Fund, which pays for specialist legal and technical advice, company set-up and project management. EGRA manages the fund carefully and transparently and will only commit it where there is a realistic prospect of progressing RTM. How to contribute →

Since the 2024 leasehold reforms took effect, the freeholder's routine legal costs of an RTM claim are no longer recoverable from leaseholders, a significant change that caps the downside of exercising the right. A clear budget will be published before significant expenditure is committed.

No decision has been made. Any use of EGRA funds would be a matter for EGRA's committee and members and would be subject to its own governance arrangements.

No assumption should be made that event income will fund RTM.

Where management functions transfer under RTM, the associated reserve funds normally transfer to the RTM company in accordance with the legislation.

An estimated 25–40%* of the service charge relates directly to your own residential building, and the remaining 60–75% to shared estate services and facilities. *Subject to expert advice and assessment: this is a broad estimate from the current service-charge structure, not yet an independently verified analysis, and the committee is still working through the schedules.

The building-level share is the part RTM would bring under your control. The larger shared share stays estate-managed, but RTM still gives your building the standing right to see, question and challenge how those shared costs are worked out.

Yes, provided we're honest about the limits. Even though the bigger share is estate-wide, building-level RTM gives you real control over building maintenance, cleaning, lifts and plant, building-specific contracts, contractor performance, financial reporting and communication with residents.

It also strengthens your ability to scrutinise and challenge the shared costs recharged to your building, and it can build leverage towards a broader shared-freehold or estate-wide arrangement later. What it won't do is hand you instant control over the larger, shared share of the bill, and we won't suggest it does.

Not automatically, and it would be wrong to promise that. What RTM gives you is much stronger visibility of the charges allocated to your building and a real ability to scrutinise and challenge them: the invoices charged to you, the contractual basis for a cost, the accounting and apportionment methods, whether the service was actually delivered, and whether your building's share looks reasonable.

The precise information rights over freeholder documents depend on the leases and the statutory framework, and will be confirmed with legal advice rather than assumed.

The RTM Company will be governed by leaseholder directors supported by professional advisers and a professional managing agent.

Directors will be appointed and elected in accordance with the company's Articles of Association.

The intention is to build a board with a balanced mix of professional expertise and representation from across Embassy Gardens.

The proposed directors recognise that resident leaseholders and investors have different priorities.

The governance model will seek balanced representation and decision-making that benefits the long-term success of the estate as a whole.

Yes. The company's Articles and company law provide mechanisms for members to appoint and remove directors.

Yes, and we're upfront about it. RTM directors take on company-law, governance and management responsibilities, and depending on the building and the legislation, duties connected with health, safety and building management too.

That's exactly why the RTM companies would be backed by professional managing agents, legal advisers, service-charge specialists, building-safety support, and directors' and officers' insurance. Directors aren't expected to act as unpaid building managers or technical experts; their job is to oversee qualified professionals and make well-informed decisions.

Possibly. This depends on employment law and whether the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) apply.

Any transfer would be handled professionally and in accordance with legal requirements.

Where appropriate, multiple RTM companies can work together through shared service agreements and appoint the same professional managing agent.

The objective would be seamless estate management rather than duplication.

Employment decisions remain subject to employment law.

However, the RTM company would have greater influence over the managing agent's performance and, where appropriate, could require service improvements or review management arrangements.

No. Winning RTM moves the decision to the leaseholder-controlled company, it doesn't force the incumbent out. The RTM company could keep BAML under stronger oversight, keep them on temporarily while it assesses the options, invite them to bid in a competitive process, or appoint a different agent, coordinating that choice with the other Embassy Gardens buildings.

No decision has been made, and no alternative agent has been interviewed or appointed.

Yes. The current agent would be welcome to bid alongside other qualified firms. The real change isn't the name over the door, it's who appoints the agent, who sets their objectives, who monitors their performance, who signs off their budgets, and who they ultimately answer to.

Under RTM, all of that sits with the leaseholder-controlled company.

Through a fair, structured and transparent process, not simply on lowest price. That means a clear service specification, evidence of relevant experience, an assessment of technical and financial capability and proposed staffing, building-safety and compliance credentials, a real approach to resident communication, measurable service levels, and references from comparable developments.

The incumbent can take part on exactly the same terms as everyone else.

By putting significant contracts through a proper competitive process instead of inherited arrangements. The RTM company could require documented requirements, genuine market testing, clear evaluation criteria weighing price against quality and service, disclosure of any related-party relationships, measurable service levels, regular performance reviews, and control of unbudgeted spend, with the option to retender or terminate where performance falls short.

The point is that suppliers, including existing ones, have to demonstrate they offer real value.

For a development the size and complexity of Embassy Gardens, the process is likely to take between 9 and 18 months.

The emphasis will be on getting the legal structure and governance right.

A freeholder cannot reject RTM simply because they disagree with it.

Any challenge must be based on recognised legal grounds, such as qualification issues or procedural defects.

Following further discussions with the freeholders and additional due diligence, the EGRA Committee now recommends that RTM should be our immediate priority.

The longer-term ambition hasn't changed: enfranchisement, or a genuinely balanced version of Option 4, could ultimately provide greater value than RTM because they can bring both the buildings and the shared estate under community control. However, unlike RTM, those options depend on reaching agreement with the freeholders. RTM is a statutory right leaseholders can exercise independently, without the freeholders' consent, which makes it the most practical first step we can take today while discussions about longer-term opportunities continue.

Yes. RTM does not remove a leaseholder's right to apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) regarding service charge disputes, subject to the relevant legal framework.

Potentially. Section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 is a separate legal remedy that may be available where there is evidence of serious or persistent management failures.

Whether it is appropriate would depend on the facts and specialist legal advice.

They are separate legal processes with different objectives.

In some circumstances, both may be available. The appropriate strategy would depend on the legal advice received.

There is a separate route, Section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, where a tribunal appoints a manager. But it is fault-based: leaseholders must prove serious management failings to a tribunal, and the appointed manager answers to the tribunal, not to leaseholders.

RTM is the opposite: there is no fault to prove, no tribunal application is needed if the claim is in order, and the management function ends up controlled by leaseholders through their own company. That is why RTM is the route we're pursuing. (This is general information, not legal advice.)

Deliberately. The first priority is building a strong community mandate, professional advisers add the greatest value when there is a realistic prospect of success. An independent RTM consultant will be appointed as momentum builds and there is sufficient support and funding to progress confidently.

We believe this is the most responsible way to manage community funds for those who have contributed already.

Appointments will be based on relevant experience, technical capability, value for money, and the ability to support a development of Embassy Gardens' scale and complexity.

The proposed communication strategy includes email newsletters, webinars, online Q&A sessions, proxy voting where appropriate, and this dedicated website.

The aim is to provide regular updates as the project progresses, together with consultation documents, key decisions and opportunities for leaseholders to ask questions.

Success is not simply acquiring RTM. Success means creating a management model that delivers professional governance, transparent financial reporting, excellent resident services, well-maintained buildings, effective communication, confidence for investors, and long-term stewardship of Embassy Gardens.