Housebuilder Bob Bessell says ‘no justification for ground rents at all’

Bob Bessell, founder of retirement housebuilder Retirement Security, told the All Party Parliamentary Group that he has never charged ground rents.

His company, based in Stratford on Avon and founded in 1985, has built 1,600 retirement flats around the country at 30 sites.

“I started as a social worker and I had to invent things from the word go.

“We have never charged ground rents because there is no justification for them.

“The leaseholder gets nothing in return. It just seems to be not right. It is as simple as that.

“It is also mediaeval, like a the lord showing that he is the boss and everybody else has to pay for it.”

Mr Bessell, who is 82, also dismissed the proposition that doing away with ground rents would make homes more expensive.

“The question of whether ground rents are a deferred value of a new property and it would cost more without them, I find hard to accept. I think that the control on prices is market forces and if developers could get higher prices then they would.

“So I am not at worried at all that doing away with ground rents would make property prices rise. I simply do not believe it.

Mr Bessell told the APPG that he and his wife and family have a controlling interest in Retirement Security. But they have decided to leave the freeholds in trust to his pensioner leaseholders.

What Mr Bessell omitted to tell the APPG was that these freeholds were last valued at £7 million.

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