The government has released their 2016/17 data on the size of the leasehold sector. Yet again the numbers seem deeply flawed.
These figures are all the more disappointing because at least in part this work follows on from the help LKP gave the government in 2014.
We now know that prior to LKP project looking at the size of the sector in 2013/14 the government had no idea on the real size of the sector. We now know that government had grossly underestimated the size of the sector for decades and that all the legislation was based on a wholly inaccurate set of assumptions.
Their govenments latest report can be read here:
They claim a new figure of 4.265 million leasehold homes rounded up to 4.3 million.
The first clue about why the numbers might be wrong is given on page one of the report.
“These figures are unchanged from 2015-16, when this estimate was last produced”.
Any reader will know every other piece of research says that new building leasehold homes constitutes a large, and growing, part of the market.
LKP hopes to produce a new set of numbers in the near future as an update to our original work in 2013/14.
Last year we wrote about why the previous sets of statistics were wrong and the same problems seem to apply again:
What’s the probability that government leasehold statistics are still useless?
Related posts:
No new leasehold homes built in 2017/18 – Honestly?
Commons told of LKP leasehold figures
LKP lunch-time Friday lecture: How we made 2.1 million homes appear
Leasehold sector is 63% larger than everyone thought, says DCLG – accepting LKP figures
What’s the probability that government leasehold statistics are still useless?
Flush with money: how Kier Homes leaseholders pay for a public toilet in Worthing
Yes the number of homes affected by the scourge of leasehold is substantially underestimated. If it were to be 4.3m back in 2016, that number would certainly have increased by now.
Remember for reasons best known to themselves, the original leasehold figures excluded council homes that had been sold off?
However by giving figures for “Homes” does disguise the true extent of the suffering of leaseholders.
The majority of leasehold homes are jointly owned. Even allowing for single occupancy properties if the number of leasehold holders rather than leasehold homes were given then the number of people afflicted by leasehold would be nearer 9m.
It may not be a deliberate hiding of the true number of leasehold but rather they couldn’t manage a p*** up in a brewery with this lot. Government is proved to be inefficient and incompetent, just look at Brexit.
Chris the Government showed their colours when moving the new Housing Minster into place and changing the statements made by the predecessor. This is because to many MPs benefit from acting as Landlord’s themselves.