How I saved nearly £2,000 on Right to Manage costs by serving my own notices

When our block started talking about Right to Manage, the first three quotes we got from solicitors to draft and serve our notices came back between £1,500 and £2,000. That is a chunk of any leaseholder group's Right to Manage costs, and we wanted to see if it was genuinely necessary.

So we read the legislation, used a notice templates wizard to generate the paperwork for our building, and served the notices ourselves. Everything went through cleanly and the freeholder responded within the statutory window. The real Right to Manage costs for us ended up being the RTM company formation fee, some postage, and an optional solicitor review we chose to pay for peace of mind.

Here is an honest account of how we did it, what worked, and when paying a professional is still the right call.

Why solicitors quote £1,500 to £2,000 for RTM notices

RTM work sits in a specialist corner of property law, and solicitors price it accordingly. The fee usually covers reviewing your leases, drafting the Notice Inviting Participation, drafting the Claim Notice, arranging service on the correct people at the correct addresses, and handling the counter notice. Each step carries some risk and firms build that into their pricing.

There is nothing wrong with paying for that expertise if it gives you confidence. What I pushed back on was the assumption that paying was the only way. Nothing in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 requires a solicitor to prepare or serve the notices.

The legal position on using a solicitor

This is worth saying plainly. You are not legally required to instruct a solicitor to draft or serve Right to Manage notices. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and its supporting regulations set out the form of the notices, who must receive them, and the timing for each step. They do not require a solicitor to be the one preparing them.

A well drafted notice is a well drafted notice regardless of who wrote it. The real risk is not the absence of a solicitor, the real risk is a defective or badly served notice. That can happen either way.

Right to Manage costs once you take solicitor drafting off the table

With full legal drafting removed from the budget, our Right to Manage costs looked very different. Companies House charges a small fee to incorporate the RTM company. There are postage and recorded delivery costs for serving notices on leaseholders and the freeholder. There is an optional fee if you ask a solicitor to review your completed notices before sending. Beyond that, there is not much else before your RTM company takes over management.

An hour of a solicitor's time to review notices you have already completed is a very different conversation from £1,500 for full drafting.

Starting from the notice templates wizard

The reason DIY was realistic for us is that we did not start from a blank page. We used the generate your RTM notices wizard to produce draft notices personalised to our building. It asks for the building details, the freeholder details, the qualifying leaseholders, and the dates that sit in the notice. The output is a set of documents that already contain the statutory wording for our scenario.

That shifts the job from drafting a legal document from scratch to checking a drafted document is right for our building. It is a much smaller task, and a much cheaper one if you do ask a solicitor to look it over.

How I approached it and where peace of mind made sense

Before drafting anything we ran the eligibility test properly. It is worth checking the qualifying criteria against your actual lease and building before putting effort into notices. Getting that wrong is where real money gets wasted. We also read the full RTM process end to end so the notices sat inside a plan we understood.

After generating our notices we reviewed them as a leaseholder group. Two pairs of eyes caught a typo in a name and a detail in a freeholder address. We then paid for a short solicitor review. That was the peace of mind layer for us, and it was far cheaper than full legal drafting would have been.

What went well for us

Keeping the work inside the leaseholder group kept engagement high. Everyone felt involved rather than being a bystander on a bill. We also felt genuine confidence in the paperwork when it went out, because we had read the notices several times and understood exactly what each one was saying.

Serving the notices turned out to be less intimidating than it sounded. Recorded delivery to the correct people, clear records of dates, and a sensible filing system for the copies.

What I would do differently next time

I would start the eligibility and participation conversations earlier. Our timeline was fine, but we lost a week or two chasing signatures we could have had in hand sooner. I would also use recorded delivery from day one for every document, rather than second guessing what could go by email. When the statutory clock matters, paper trails matter more.

The other thing I would do earlier is book the solicitor review. Leaving it until the last minute added pressure we did not need.

When paying a solicitor for full drafting is still the right call

DIY is not right for every building. If your leases contain unusual clauses, if the freeholder structure is complicated, if there has been any dispute history with the landlord, or if the qualifying leaseholder picture is borderline, paying for full legal drafting is a sensible investment. The cost of getting a notice wrong, either technically or by serving it on the wrong person, is usually higher than the legal fees you would have paid.

The same is true if the group does not have anyone willing to take the lead on reading documents carefully. DIY only works if at least one or two leaseholders will genuinely engage with the detail.

The real Right to Manage costs picture

For our block, the Right to Manage costs came in at well under what our first legal quotes would have been. Most of our spending was on the RTM company incorporation, postage, and a short solicitor review. The headline £1,500 to £2,000 in legal drafting simply did not need to happen because we did the drafting ourselves from a proper template.

Your mileage may vary. What matters is knowing that the choice exists and that it is supported by the legislation. If you want a clear next step, start by checking whether your building qualifies at all.

This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation is different. If you need guidance specific to your building or lease, please consult a qualified solicitor.