The Right to Manage Process Step by Step: Notices, Deadlines and the Acquisition Date

Once leaseholders decide to take over management of their building, the Right to Manage stops being a decision and becomes a procedure, and the procedure runs on statutory clocks. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 fixes a minimum timetable that no amount of goodwill can compress: at least 14 days between the participation notices and the claim notice, at least one month for your landlord's counter-notice, and at least three months from the counter-notice date to the day management actually transfers. Add those floors together and the fastest lawful claim takes roughly four and a half months from first notice to takeover, and that is with nobody objecting and nothing served late.

The timetable below takes the claim in statutory order, attaches every deadline to the section that creates it, corrects a persistent myth about the counter-notice window, sets out who pays what under the costs rules in force since 3 March 2025, and ends with the handover, where the service charge money changes hands and where claims go financially wrong. Whether RTM is worth pursuing for your building, and the qualifying tests it must pass, is a separate question answered in our guide to whether the Right to Manage is right for you; forming and running the company sits in the RTM company setup guide. Everything here assumes the decision is made and the company exists.

The claim at a glance

Every RTM claim follows the same statutory sequence under Part 2 Chapter 1 of the 2002 Act:

1. Notices inviting participation go to every qualifying tenant who has not already joined the RTM company (s.78).
2. A minimum 14-day wait follows before the claim can be made (s.79(2)).
3. The claim notice is served on your landlord and the other required recipients, with the company's membership covering at least half the flats on the day of service (s.79).
4. Your landlord responds, if at all, by the counter-notice date in the claim notice, either admitting the claim or disputing it (s.84).
5. A disputed claim goes to the First-tier Tribunal, on an application the company must make within two months of the counter-notice.
6. Management transfers on the acquisition date fixed by s.90, and the handover of contracts, insurance and service charge funds happens around it.

The deadlines run in one direction only. Your landlord's clock is a minimum you must give; your own clocks are hard limits you must meet, and missing one generally kills the claim rather than delaying it. The dispute grounds are closed too: a counter-notice can attack qualification, membership or the notices, and nothing else, so good or bad management never enters these papers.

The full timeline, statute by statute

The table below is the claim reduced to its statutory skeleton. Every period in it comes from the section cited, in the text as amended and in force today; the elapsed-time estimates for real claims come later in the page and are kept separate deliberately, because only the figures below are law.

Step	Statutory basis	Minimum period or deadline	Who acts
1. Notices inviting participation served on all qualifying tenants not already members	CLRA 2002 s.78	Articles must be open to inspection for at least 2 hours on each of at least 3 days within the 7 days after the notice (s.78(5)); a notice failing this is treated as not given (s.78(6))	RTM company
2. Waiting period before the claim notice	CLRA 2002 s.79(2)	At least 14 days after every required participation notice	RTM company (waits)
3. Claim notice served on the landlord and other required recipients	CLRA 2002 s.79; form prescribed by SI 2010/825	On the day of service, members must include qualifying tenants of at least half the flats (s.79(5))	RTM company
4. Counter-notice window	CLRA 2002 s.80(6) and s.84	The date stated in the claim notice, which must be not earlier than 1 month after the notice is given	Landlord
5. Tribunal application if the claim is disputed	CLRA 2002 s.84(4)	Within 2 months beginning with the day the counter-notice was given	RTM company
6. Intended acquisition date stated in the claim notice	CLRA 2002 s.80(7)	At least 3 months after the counter-notice date	Fixed in the claim notice
7. Acquisition, uncontested claim	CLRA 2002 s.90(2)	The date specified in the claim notice	Management transfers
8. Acquisition, disputed claim	CLRA 2002 s.90(4)	3 months after the tribunal's determination becomes final	Management transfers

Stack the floors and the arithmetic is simple: 14 days, plus one month, plus three months is about four and a half months from participation notice to acquisition, before any preparation, service logistics or disputes are added. Nothing in the Act lets you go faster; everything in practice makes you slower.

The participation notices, the wait and the claim notice

The claim opens with the notice inviting participation under s.78. It goes to every qualifying tenant in the building who is not already a member of the RTM company, and its job is to give each of them a genuine chance to join before the claim is made. The section polices that genuineness with an unusually specific rule: the notice must either include the company's articles of association or state where and when they can be inspected, and an inspection statement must offer periods of at least two hours on each of at least three days, at least one of them a Saturday or Sunday, all falling within the seven days beginning the day after the notice is given, with copies available on request. Under s.78(6), a notice that does not deliver on that statement is treated as never having been given, which in turn poisons the claim notice that follows, so this apparently minor logistical rule is a genuine claim-killer.

Then comes the wait. Section 79(2) forbids serving the claim notice until every person entitled to a participation notice has had one for at least 14 days. The clock runs from the last notice given, so a straggler flat noticed late restarts the count for the whole claim.

The claim notice under s.79 is the formal exercise of the right, served on every landlord under a lease of the whole or part of the premises and on every other party the section requires, including any management company that is party to the leases. A claim notice fails on any one of these:

• The prescribed form. The notice must follow the form set by the Right to Manage (Prescribed Particulars and Forms) (England) Regulations 2010, SI 2010/825. Those regulations were last amended in 2013 for tribunal renaming and were not changed by the 2024 reforms, so the 2010 forms remain the current prescribed forms in England. Wales has its own prescribed forms and its own tribunal, so a Welsh block should not use the England forms. A home-made notice, or an out-of-date template carrying the wrong particulars, is the defect landlords hunt for first.
• The membership threshold. On the day the notice is served, the company's members must include qualifying tenants of not less than half the flats in the building, under s.79(5), or both tenants where the building has only two flats, under s.79(4). The test bites at service, so members who join the day after do not count.
• The two forward dates. The notice must state a counter-notice date not earlier than one month ahead (s.80(6)) and an intended acquisition date at least three months after that (s.80(7)). Get either date wrong and the notice is defective.
• Service you cannot prove. Notices under this Chapter must be in writing, and may be given by post to the last-known address of the person receiving them or, for landlords, to the address given in the lease for service of notices. Use a method that produces proof of posting, keep the certificate with the file copy, and diarise the date each notice was given, because every downstream deadline counts from a date somebody may later ask you to evidence.

Your landlord's response: counter-notice, admit or dispute

Your landlord's only formal move is the counter-notice under s.84, and it must arrive no later than the date the claim notice specified. The often-quoted 35-day counter-notice window is not statutory. Section 80(6) requires the claim notice to specify a date "not earlier than one month after" the notice is given. The legal minimum is one month; the operative deadline is whatever date the notice states. Claim notices commonly allow a few days beyond the month as a service margin, which is presumably where the 35-day convention originated, but landlords who treat 35 days as an entitlement when the notice gave 31 are out of time.

A counter-notice can only do one of two things: admit that the RTM company was entitled to acquire the right to manage on the date the claim notice was given, or dispute entitlement by alleging a specific reason by reference to a provision of the Chapter. Because the right is no-fault, the dispute grounds are structural: the building does not qualify, the company or its membership does not satisfy the Act, or the notices are defective. If no counter-notice is served at all, entitlement is established by default and the claim rolls forward to the acquisition date in the notice.

A disputing counter-notice starts the most dangerous clock in the whole procedure. The RTM company must apply to the tribunal for a determination of its entitlement not later than the end of the two months beginning with the day the counter-notice was given (s.84(4); s.84(3) is the power to apply, s.84(4) is the clock). Since 3 March 2025 the forum in England is the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) at first instance: LFRA 2024 s.52, brought into force by SI 2025/131, abolished first-instance applications to the High Court in these matters, closing off a route freeholders had occasionally used to escalate cost pressure. Which of the 2024 Act's leasehold reforms are actually in force is a moving picture; our LFRA 2024 in-force ledger tracks it, and the RTM provisions are among the few fully commenced.

Deemed withdrawal and the classic claim-killers

Section 87 kills more claims than any counter-notice does. A claim notice is deemed withdrawn, automatically and without anyone serving anything, in three situations:

• The tribunal application is never made. A counter-notice disputes entitlement and the two-month application window closes without an application. This is the classic failure: the committee assumes the solicitor is handling it, the solicitor assumes instructions are coming, and the claim lapses on a date nobody diarised.
• The application is withdrawn. Pulling the tribunal application, even as part of a negotiation, deems the claim notice withdrawn with it.
• The company fails. Winding up, administration, the appointment of a receiver or manager, a voluntary arrangement, or the company being struck off the register all deem the claim withdrawn. Strike-off is the insidious one, because it usually happens for missed confirmation statements rather than insolvency; keeping the company's filings current during the claim is part of running the claim, and our RTM company guide covers that discipline.

There is one escape hatch, and it reaches only the first two bullets. Section 87(3) disapplies s.87(1) where the person who gave the counter-notice agrees in writing that the company was entitled on the relevant date, so a written concession from the freeholder rescues a claim that would otherwise lapse for a missed or withdrawn application. It is always worth pressing for when a dispute collapses in correspondence rather than at a hearing. A strike-off or insolvency event falls under s.87(4) and cannot be cured this way, whatever the freeholder is willing to sign.

Alongside s.87 sit the notice defects: a participation notice whose inspection arrangements fell short of s.78(5), a claim notice off the prescribed form, a membership count below half the flats at service, a counter-notice date less than a month out, an acquisition date less than three months beyond it. A deemed withdrawal or a fatally defective notice does not end the project, but it does mean starting the sequence again from the participation notices, with the weeks and legal fees that implies.

Who pays what since March 2025

The costs question now turns on conduct, not outcome. Sections 88 and 89 of the 2002 Act, which made the RTM company pay the freeholder's professional costs of dealing with a claim whatever happened to it, were repealed on 3 March 2025 by LFRA 2024 s.50 via SI 2025/131, and the replacement only bites where a claim is withdrawn after being run unreasonably. Two sections do the work:

• Section 87A, the general rule: an RTM company and its members are not liable for costs any other person incurs in consequence of the claim notice. Each side bears its own costs of the process and, through sections 20CA and 20J of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 that s.87A signposts, your landlord cannot recycle the claim costs into the service charge either.
• Section 87B, the exception: the tribunal may order the company to pay your landlord's reasonably incurred non-litigation costs, but only where the claim notice has been withdrawn or has ceased to have effect (a s.87 deemed withdrawal included) and the company acted unreasonably in giving or not withdrawing the notice.

For a claim run competently, the budget is therefore your own side only: company formation, notice preparation and service, and tribunal fees if disputed. The costs exposure that remains is concentrated exactly where the procedural traps are, because it is withdrawal plus unreasonable conduct that opens the s.87B door. A claim that lapses through a missed two-month deadline after the company pressed on against clear defects is the fact pattern that risks both losing the claim and paying for it.

The acquisition date and the handover

Section 90 fixes the day management actually transfers, and the route the claim took determines which subsection applies:

• Uncontested (no counter-notice, or counter-notices admitting the claim): the acquisition date is the date specified in the claim notice (s.90(2)).
• Tribunal-determined: three months after the determination becomes final, that is, after appeal rights are exhausted (s.90(4)).
• Late written agreement: where your landlord disputed but then conceded in writing, three months after the agreement (s.90(5)).
• Court-order cases under s.85: the date the order specifies (s.90(6)).

From that date the management functions under the leases, repairs, maintenance, insurance, services, and the collection of service charges, are the RTM company's. The Act handles part of the transition mechanically, through contract and contractor notices that deal with existing management contracts, but the financial handover is the part that decides whether the first year's budget starts clean. Treat the acquisition date as an accounting cut-off rather than an admin task, and ask for all of this before the date:

• Final service charge accounts made up to the acquisition date, showing what was demanded, collected and spent under the old management.
• The uncommitted funds and reserves. Service charge money leaseholders have paid is held on trust under s.42 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987; it is not the landlord's money, and uncommitted balances and reserve funds should transfer to the RTM company's own trust account. Get the account details, the balances and the transfer date in writing.
• Accrued liabilities. Work done or ordered before the acquisition date but not yet invoiced will surface after you take over. A schedule of commitments and work in progress stops the first year's budget being eaten by the old management's tail.
• The contracts. Copies of every management, maintenance, lift, cleaning and utility contract, with notice periods, so you can decide what to keep, renegotiate or terminate through the statutory contract-notice machinery.
• Insurance from day one. Responsibility for insuring the building passes with the management functions, so the RTM company's buildings policy must be on risk on the acquisition date itself, not when the broker gets round to it.
• The arrears ledger and compliance records: who owes what, and the fire, asbestos, electrical and other statutory records the company now has to maintain.

Reconciling the closing accounts against the funds actually transferred is the accountant's step in the claim, and the one most committees skip. Unexplained gaps between the trust balances shown in the final accounts and the cash received are exactly the disputes that fester for years afterwards; our guide to service charge disputes covers the leaseholder-side machinery that applies when the numbers do not add up. If the amounts are material, an hour of an accountant's time on the final accounts and the accruals schedule is worth spending while the outgoing agent still needs your sign-off.

How long it really takes

The statutory floor is about four and a half months; real claims take longer, because the floors only count the waiting the Act imposes, not the work around it. As practitioner estimates rather than statutory figures: a well-run uncontested claim typically completes in around four to six months from first participation notice to acquisition, once you allow for preparing and serving notices across many flats, and organising the handover. Uncontested claims stretch for reasons on your side of the table: chasing participation to reach half the flats, tracing the correct recipients for the claim notice, and re-serving after a defect is spotted.

A contested claim runs on a different scale. Here is one walked against the calendar, with illustrative dates and each step cited:

• 1 September: claim notice served, specifying 2 October as the counter-notice date (one month, s.80(6)) and 5 January as the intended acquisition date (the three-month minimum falls on 2 January, and the notice allows a short margin, s.80(7)).
• 2 October: the freeholder serves a counter-notice disputing entitlement, alleging the building fails the qualification tests.
• By 1 December: the RTM company must have applied to the First-tier Tribunal, two months beginning with the day the counter-notice was given (s.84(4)). The intended acquisition date in the notice is now academic.
• Spring: the tribunal hears the case and determines that the company was entitled. The determination becomes final once the appeal window passes.
• Three months after finality: the acquisition date (s.90(4)), landing roughly a year after the participation notices went out.

That is a contested claim going well. Add tribunal listing pressure, an appeal, or a re-served notice, and contested claims comfortably exceed a year. The practical moral of the timetable is that speed is won early, not late: a claim notice on the prescribed form, served with the membership threshold met and both forward dates correctly calculated, gives a careful freeholder nothing to dispute, and the one-month and three-month clocks then run to a takeover nobody can stop.

The procedure rewards diary discipline more than legal firepower: three of the deadlines above are fatal if missed, and none can be extended by agreement. So start a claim diary before you start the claim. Put the date each notice was given, the counter-notice date, the two-month tribunal date and the acquisition date in a calendar that more than one person can see, and check the company's own filing dates are in the same place, because a strike-off mid-claim ends it as surely as a missed deadline. A solicitor who runs RTM claims will keep the notices on form; an accountant earns their fee before the acquisition date rather than after, while the outgoing agent still needs something from you.