The Guardian’s personal finance editor Patrick Collinson has given a warm endorsement of the Nationwide’s decision last week to end the ground rent scandal.
“Overnight, Nationwide building society has made hundreds, and possibly thousands, of new-build flats and houses almost unsaleable – and they should be roundly applauded for doing so.”
Nationwide bans mortgages on doubling ground rent properties
Patrick Collinson references the Berkeley Group’s 60-acre development south of Reading called Kennet Island.
Prices for the remaining leasehold flats start at £249,950, but ground rents are reportedly £350 and would increase with RPI.
“That’s more than 0.1% of the value of the property – which means buyers won’t now qualify for a Nationwide mortgage. Either Berkeley cuts the ground rent or finds that buyers will melt away, unable to find a loan.
“Coming so soon after Taylor Wimpey said it had set aside £130m to compensate buyers caught in the ground rent trap, it’s another small victory in the battle against leasehold abuse.”
The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership acknowledges the huge contribution of Patrick Collinson to get these scandals out into the public domain.
Last autumn he was the first journalist to write up the Martin Paine ground rent game playing – a small fry freeholder who lands ordinary families with ground rents of £8,000 a year through cleverness with a deed of variation to the lease.
Sir Peter Bottomley, who works closely with LKP in exposing these scandals, called Mr Paine a “crook” in the Commons on December 20.
Martin Paine ‘is a crook who is turning sleaze in leases into an art form’, MPs told
Mr Collinson then followed with a series of articles about leasehold flats and houses sold with doubling ground rents.
These articles on the Guardian website received more than 1,000 comments.
Mr Collinson kept going with the issue throughout November and December, speaking at the LKP organised All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform on December 14.
Guardian’s Patrick Collinson says ‘time to reform leasehold in entirety’
All leaseholders should be grateful to Patrick Collinson.
We should also be thankful that proper journalism such as The Guardian still does exist and we should contribute to it.
Other coverage of Nationwide’s decision:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/06/nationwide-housebuilders-leasehold-new-builds
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/nationwide-challenges-poor-leasehold-practices/5060943.article
https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/nationwide-cracks-leasehold-lending/
Related posts:
Guardian’s Patrick Collinson says ‘time to reform leasehold in entirety’
Patrick Collinson, of The Guardian, … on leasehold
‘New-build ground rent scandal could spark legal battles,’ says Guardian
Guardian reports the Taylor Wimpey £130m offer to settle ground rent scandal
Guardian sticks with new-build ground rent scandal, while LKP advises Persimmon home buyers to walk away
Police may need to investigate ground rent scandal, says Bottomley
Another great article.
The misery for many leaseholders is similar to Bleak House. The fog of complexity can be ruinous for the ordinary homeowner.
Does Tulkinghorn remind you of someone at LEASE. He is a ‘confoundedly bad kind of man’. A bully,unresponsive and delights in having power.
Something dodgy or incompetent about DCLG saying their man has no conflict of interest. Yet his fortune was made managing leaseholds and no doubt disputes with leaseholders.. DCLG’s appointments have shown no compassion or empathy for victims. Who controls these faceless bureaucrats whose newspeak mantra is everythign in the garden is rosy.
Mr Tulkinghorn is ‘oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home’ . LEASE is that home..
The genius of social campaigner Dickens wrote that just because it’s legal doesn’t make it moral or fair. Gavin Barwell and Sajid Javid take note and please do the right thing in your manifesto.