October 14 2018 UPDATE: On January 29 2019 Communities Secretary James Brokenshire held a round table with leaseholder groups, assuring them that zero ground rents were on the table. Sebastian O’Kelly, of LKP and www.BetterRetirementHousing.com, argued for retirement housing also to lose its exemption from any ground rent ban. This week we should have […]
Cladding crisis reveals why freeholders are an impediment to any solution
The disaster of flammable cladding on blocks of flats and what to do about it is providing the biggest push to transform leasehold law since the eruption of the doubling ground rent scandal which we exposed in 2016. The question being asked is: what is the third-party freehold owning landlord actually for? For ground rent […]
Martin Boyd flags controversial civil servant letter to City Hall at fire safety meeting
By Harry Scoffin LKP chair Martin Boyd was quizzed on fire safety in residential buildings and the government’s handling of post-Grenfell remediation works at City Hall yesterday. He sat alongside professionals from the London Fire Brigade, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, London Tenants Federation and Barking & Dagenham Council’s BeFirst regeneration corporation. Speaking to […]
Leaseholders pay up to 60% more for buildings insurance because of secret commissions, reports The Times
By Harry Scoffin The property section of The Times has this month been leading on calls to end opaque insurance arrangements for leasehold blocks. In a sign of how leasehold is now dominating the news agenda, the title’s investment editor Mark Atherton has published on the issue of secret commissions over two consecutive Saturdays. Leaseholders […]
Will Lord Best’s regulator help break the power of freeholders over their leaseholder victims?
Sweeping changes are urged across all areas of property management and agency, including leasehold, in an important review published today by the independent peer Lord Best. The aim is to bring order into an area where cowboys have roamed the range with control of millions of pounds of other people’s money with very little effective […]
Bottomley thanks Number 10 for leasehold reform … while colleague brands Persimmon ‘crooks, cowboys and con artists’ at prime minister’s questions
By Harry Scoffin APPG co-chair Sir Peter Bottomley lavished praise on Theresa May and her chief of staff Gavin Barwell at prime minister’s questions today. Mr Barwell, a former housing minister, was set to present an award to LKP heads Sebastian O’Kelly and Martin Boyd at a reception in Parliament on Monday but was unable […]
Number 10 chief of staff Gavin Barwell ‘delighted’ to be invited to present award to LKP
The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership was presented with a prestigious award by the All Party Parliamentary Group for leasehold and commonhold reform, which represents 171 MPs. Former housing minister Gavin Barwell, the current chief of staff of Number 10, was to have presented the award to Sebastian O’Kelly, LKP chief executive, and to Martin Boyd, the […]
Ending ground rents will hurt leaseholders, says Long Harbour …
… which won’t say who owns freeholds it manages A last gasp effort to save ground rents was made by Long Harbour executive director Richard Silva in the recent issue of News on the Block. The scandal of onerous ground rents has been driving the call for reform while “only affecting a small fraction of […]
ONS trumpets collapse in sales of new-build leasehold houses
By Harry Scoffin The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed that just 4.2% of all new houses sold across England and Wales in 2018 were leasehold tenancies, down from 13.3% in 2017. The ONS has described its decision to publish a leasehold dataset as having being influenced by the “growing public and policy interest” […]
The i newspaper links leasehold ‘slums of the future’ to Help To Buy and the Tchenguiz Family Trust
By Harry Scoffin Housing journalist Vicky Spratt revealed last week that the controversial permitted development rights (PDR) policy is being supported by taxpayer money. In an investigation for i, Ms Spratt showed how developers have been converting former office blocks into ‘rabbit hutch’ flats using PDR rules. The research has found that the micro-homes, some […]
Lord Best report on regulating managing agents and service charges to be unveiled tomorrow
By Harry Scoffin The all-things-to-all-people working group that Lord Best was commissioned to lead in October 2018 is set to disappoint at least one constituency in the leasehold sector when it reports to government tomorrow. The independent crossbencher, who has a background in social housing, is expected to urge the government to set up a […]
Park homes like leasehold with serious menace added, LKP tells Guardian
Excellent article by the ever dependable Emma Lunn in the Guardian about park homes. 180,000 people, mainly pensioners, live in these homes which sit amid private estates, sometimes owned by the least salubrious figures in the property sector. Which is saying something. Activist Tony Turner, 76, bought a park home in Cornwall in 2006. He […]
Boris Johnson signs up to the APPG as pressure grows on lawmakers to be bold on leasehold
By Harry Scoffin As the political arms race over leasehold and commonhold rages on, LKP is pleased to report that Boris Johnson has joined the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform. The decision by the presumptive prime minister to join the bipartisan caucus of parliamentarians is a coup for campaigners pushing for abolition of […]
Jeremy Corbyn raises forfeiture case at prime minister’s questions
By Harry Scoffin Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn today waded into the leasehold scandal at prime minister’s questions. Mr Corbyn’s surprise intervention suggests that concerns around controversial leasehold contracts have finally entered the political mainstream. Referencing the comments Theresa May made about “burning injustices” on the steps of 10 Downing Street, Mr Corbyn asked whether the […]
Labour promises to banish leasehold to the history books
Today the Labour Party launched its long-awaited proposals on leasehold and commonhold. Labour’s reform package promises to bring to an end a racket by property opportunists and financiers to deprive ordinary families and new generations of the benefits of real home ownership. The detailed 28-page report jointly launched by Shadow Housing Secretary John Healey MP […]
Political arms race commences as Labour announces £250 ground rents for existing leaseholders
By Harry Scoffin Yesterday The Telegraph exclusively revealed that the next Labour government will change the law to give relief to existing leaseholders with monetary ground rents. Labour has adopted the Communities Select Committee proposal of regulating ground rents to 0.1 per cent of a property’s current value, up to a maximum £250 per annum. […]
Seize ‘golden opportunity’ offered by Help To Buy 2021 to end taxpayer-funded spread of toxic leasehold, urges Tory MP
Let’s be Blunt, Mr Brokenshire … Witness what MP Crispin Blunt from Surrey has to say No time for mincing words No time for wasting taxpayers’ money And certainly no time for land inequality By Harry Scoffin In the run-up to last Thursday’s announcement that future leasehold houses and monetary ground rents on flats are […]
