Quick summary
Selling a flat in a share of freehold building means transferring a share in the company that owns the freehold alongside the lease, using a stock transfer form (the J30), an updated member register, a possible stamp duty check above £1,000, and a possible extra filing if the transfer crosses the 25% ownership threshold.
Sell a flat in a share of freehold building and there's more to hand over than a set of keys. A share in the company that owns the freehold moves too, a separate legal step the conveyancing solicitors don't automatically sort, and one that's remarkably easy for a building's board to miss.
What needs to happen
- Fill in a stock transfer form (J30). The standard form for private company shares, showing who's selling, who's buying, which shares, and what was paid.
- Check for stamp duty. If the consideration for the shares alone exceeds £1,000, duty may apply. More in our piece on stamp duty and share of freehold transfers.
- Update the register of members. New owner, transfer date, done properly.
- Check the ownership position. Did the transfer push anyone over or under 25%? If so, that needs its own filing, see our guide on who that actually applies to.
- Issue a new share certificate, marking the old one cancelled.
- Reflect it at the next confirmation statement, if it hasn't already been covered.
Whose job this actually is
The flat sale belongs to the solicitors. The share transfer is company business, and that usually lands on the building's own board, often precisely where a sale grinds to a halt when a buyer's solicitor asks for a share certificate nobody's got round to producing.
Where it usually goes wrong
- The transfer happens, the register doesn't get updated, and the gap only surfaces at the next sale.
- Correspondence addresses go stale, when the seller was also a director or a person with significant control on file.
- Nobody checks the 25% threshold, so a filing that should have happened simply doesn't.
- A former shareholder just won't sign. If a share stopped moving with an earlier sale entirely, see our guide on when a co-freeholder won't sign a share transfer for the real options.
Two things reliably slow this down at the last minute: the buyer's solicitor asking for paperwork nobody has assembled, and a certificate that has gone missing. Both are covered in what the buyer's solicitor actually wants and what to do about a lost share certificate. Whichever way the transfer goes, it has to end up in the one register you still have to keep.
Frequently asked questions
Does the share transfer need to happen the same day as completion?
As close as possible. Buyers' solicitors tend to want the share certificate as part of the deal, and letting the register drift out of sync isn't worth the convenience of doing it later. FreeholdMate generates the transfer form as soon as the transfer's recorded, so there's no separate paperwork step holding things up.
Who signs the stock transfer form (J30)?
Usually the seller. The buyer's details go on the form, and the company registers the transfer and issues a fresh certificate.
What if the seller was also a director?
Selling the flat leaves them on the board unless a resignation is filed separately, see our guide on recording a director resignation, an easy thing to overlook unless someone checks. Software that surfaces both the share transfer and the director's status on one screen, which is how FreeholdMate treats it, makes that harder to miss.