• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Find everything …
  • Contact
Donate

Leasehold Knowledge Management Logo

Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform

Mobile Menu

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Find everything …
  • Contact
  • Advice
  • News
    • Find everything …
    • About Peverel group
    • APPG
    • ARMA
    • Bellway
    • Benjamin Mire
    • Brixton Hill Court
    • Canary Riverside
    • Charter Quay
    • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
    • Cladding scandal
    • Competition and Markets Authority / OFT
    • Commonhold
    • Communities Select Committee
    • Conveyancing Association
    • Countrywide
    • MHCLG
    • E&J Capital Partners
    • Exit fees
    • FirstPort
    • Fleecehold
    • Forfeiture
    • FPRA
    • Gleeson Homes
    • Ground rent scandal
    • Hanover
    • House managers flat
    • House of Lords
    • Housing associations
    • Informal lease extension
    • Insurance
    • IRPM
    • JB Leitch
    • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
    • John Christodoulou
    • Justin Bates
    • Justin Madders MP
    • Law Commission
    • LEASE
    • Liam Spender
    • Local authority leasehold
    • London Assembly
    • Louie Burns
    • Martin Paine
    • McCarthy and Stone
    • Moskovitz / Gurvits
    • Mulberry Mews
    • National Leasehold Campaign
    • Oakland Court
    • Park Homes
    • Parliament
    • Persimmon
    • Peverel
    • Philip Rainey QC
    • Plantation Wharf
    • Press
    • Property tribunal
    • Prostitutes
    • Quadrangle House
    • Redrow
    • Retirement
    • Richard Davidoff
    • RICS
    • Right To Manage Federation
    • Roger Southam
    • Rooftop development
    • RTM
    • Sean Powell
    • SFO
    • Shared ownership
    • Sinclair Gardens Investments
    • Sir Ed Davey
    • Sir Peter Bottomley
    • St George’s Wharf
    • Subletting
    • Taylor Wimpey
    • Tchenguiz
    • Warwick Estates
    • West India Quay
    • William Waldorf Astor
    • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
  • [Custom]
Menu
  • Advice
  • News
      • Find everything …
      • About Peverel group
      • APPG
      • ARMA
      • Bellway
      • Benjamin Mire
      • Brixton Hill Court
      • Canary Riverside
      • Charter Quay
      • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
      • Cladding scandal
      • Competition and Markets Authority / OFT
      • Commonhold
      • Communities Select Committee
      • Conveyancing Association
      • Countrywide
      • MHCLG
      • E&J Capital Partners
      • Exit fees
      • FirstPort
      • Fleecehold
      • Forfeiture
      • FPRA
      • Gleeson Homes
      • Ground rent scandal
      • Hanover
      • House managers flat
      • House of Lords
      • Housing associations
      • Informal lease extension
      • Insurance
      • IRPM
      • JB Leitch
      • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
      • John Christodoulou
      • Justin Bates
      • Justin Madders MP
      • Law Commission
      • LEASE
      • Liam Spender
      • Local authority leasehold
      • London Assembly
      • Louie Burns
      • Martin Paine
      • McCarthy and Stone
      • Moskovitz / Gurvits
      • Mulberry Mews
      • National Leasehold Campaign
      • Oakland Court
      • Park Homes
      • Parliament
      • Persimmon
      • Peverel
      • Philip Rainey QC
      • Plantation Wharf
      • Press
      • Property tribunal
      • Prostitutes
      • Quadrangle House
      • Redrow
      • Retirement
      • Richard Davidoff
      • RICS
      • Right To Manage Federation
      • Roger Southam
      • Rooftop development
      • RTM
      • Sean Powell
      • SFO
      • Shared ownership
      • Sinclair Gardens Investments
      • Sir Ed Davey
      • Sir Peter Bottomley
      • St George’s Wharf
      • Subletting
      • Taylor Wimpey
      • Tchenguiz
      • Warwick Estates
      • West India Quay
      • William Waldorf Astor
      • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
You are here: Home / News / Michael Gove’s admission today that regulation failures in part caused Grenfell clears path to final resolution of the building safety crisis

Michael Gove’s admission today that regulation failures in part caused Grenfell clears path to final resolution of the building safety crisis

January 29, 2023 //  by Admin4

Michael Gove: We are to blame on Grenfell

Michael Gove raised his son and daughter minutes from Grenfell Tower. Five days after the fire that destroyed the west London high rise, he returned, walking around its blackened husk. The remains of some of the 72 people who were killed, 18 of them children, were still inside.

Michael Gove vows to scrap ‘feudal’ leasehold system this year

Michael Gove has pledged to bring forward laws to scrap most “feudal” leaseholds in England this year. Ministers are preparing to ditch rules that bar flat owners from buying the freehold to their property if a small part of their building is given over to commercial use, such as shops.

Will Gove’s leasehold plan make it easier to buy freehold?

Gove has said: ‘In crude terms, if you buy a flat that should be yours’ Proposals could make it easier for leaseholders to buy the freehold If they do so they could set their own ground rents and grant long leases Michael Gove has announced that the Government is planning to scrap leasehold laws that prevent some flat owners from buying their freehold of their properties.

Property developers told to commit to £2bn UK repair scheme

The UK has given property developers six weeks to sign up to an industry-funded £2bn repair scheme aimed at protecting thousands of tenants in England in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze or face “significant consequences”.

By Martin Boyd

In an interview for today’s Sunday Times housing secretary Micheal Gove has finally accepted that faulty regulations were one of the contributory factors in the building safety crisis.

There is also a statement to Parliament here

Sun shines on the leaseholders’ demo at Parliament: after Jenrick, is this a new dawn?

His argument is that weak regulations allowed unscrupulous operators to exploit the system. Although he did not name names the most egregious insulation and cladding producers have been mentioned throughout the Grenfell Inquiry.

This fundamental change of stance on behalf of the government highlights the flawed position put forward by the Housing department in the five and half years since the Grenfell tragedy.

Until now Ministers and officials have repeatedly claimed regulations were not at fault. The government’s supposedly independent expert panel spent years seeking to place the blame on everyone and everything except faulty regulations. Their role is now almost entirely discredited by the Gove announcement today.

Grenfell cladding debate: Who thinks offshore freeholders will pay (apart from government ministers)?

Mr Gove’s statement also seems to run counter to a number of the submissions made to the Grenfell Inquiry by the officials who oversaw the regulations. Submissions made clear that officials felt that they did not need to accept the recommendations of the coroner in the 2009 Lakanal House fire in Camberwell, south east London, or the many requests from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Rescue and Safety, which was headed by murdered MP Sir David Amess and is served as secretariat by former fire chief Ronnie King OBE.

Had the government accepted the position that Mr Gove now accepts much of the Grenfell fallout could have been very different. We would not have had hundreds of thousands of residents and leaseholders suffering for years worried about safety and costs. More important, the Grenfell families would not have had to wait so long for a minister to accept that the tragedy was in part government’s fault.

£3m Grenfell cladding bills fall on residents at Lendlease’s Cypress Place and Vallea Court
APPG, December 6: Park home banditry; Law Commission; Planners barring leasehold houses; London deputy mayor; gargantuan Grenfell bills for leaseholders

For six years, we have had a standoff with the housing sector refusing to accept many failings were their fault, but knowing full well that they had made serious mistakes, with the government asserting that its hands were clean: that the sector was at fault and that failures were nothing to do with officialdom.

In the early days after Grenfell, the developers met the late housing secretary James Brokenshire who argued that they should take responsibility for the repairs to their buildings. Some told the government to go away in very forceful language.

LKP first sat in front of officials in November 2017 warning that the cladding crisis would spiral out of control if they didn’t act quickly. It is an utter tragedy that officials seemed to be more concerned about the blame not being put on the department than they were in solving the problems.

We have been through successive waves of leaseholder voluntary cladding groups – helped by LKP and the National Leasehold Campaign – and it is largely due to the leaseholders’ own efforts that under Mr Gove major changes were made to the Building Safety Act.

If the department had not insisted in 2017 that justice must be allowed to follow its course – which meant waiting for the landlords to take leaseholders to court (the property tribunal) to establish that the law made them liable for the full remediation costs, things could have moved more quickly.

Lendlease caves in over £5m Grenfell cladding bills at Vallea Court and Cypress Place

If they had not spent years drafting legislation to ensure leaseholders would be made liable for all historic costs things could have been so different. If there had been a proper grown-up conversation with the housebuilders things would have been very different.

Its also been a tragedy that from the day Dame Judith Hackitt, former chair of the Health and Safety Executive, was appointed to lead the building safety review she was advised that she was guided not to consider the legal tenure and rules under which residential blocks of flats operate. She was advised that leasehold was not relevant to her consideration. It always was, and still is.

We end up in the ridiculous position where:

Hackitt argues residents should be at the heart of building safety, but ended up without a single representative of the leasehold residents – who pay for everything in these blocks – being part of any of her working groups.

Dame Judith Hackitt says cladding leaseholders risk ruin with rip-off charges. She wants to help. But is still at sea over leasehold law …

We have the very first statutory Health and Safety Executive residents’ panel meeting without a single member of the main leaseholder cladding groups and we have the Welsh Government’s key stakeholder group filled with suppliers, regulators and everyone else … except the representatives of the Welsh leaseholder cladding groups.

We end up with a number of suppliers who see the building safety crisis as a way to make money, whether it be the construction industry led plan for a building safety manager, or the companies now suddenly expert in assessing fire doors or the waking watch consultancy run by a member of the government “independent” expert panel.

It is also unfortunate that there have been those who thought a simple solution might work and who also failed to understand the omnipresent impact of leasehold law and flawed regulations.

The forced loan scheme failed, the design to simply allocate fault failed, the scheme to make the lenders provide finance failed, the warranty schemes have failed.

The levy scheme originally proposed by LKP (thanks to a team headed by ex-Bank of England economist and LKP trustee Dean Buckner, assisted by solicitor Liam Spender and leaseholder Lucy Brown-Cortes) moved forward in two different guises, with both a levy on developer profits and a levy on construction.

Mr Gove’s statement will have a seismic effect on many issues. The developers may be far more willing to sign their agreements to help fix their buildings and move on now that the government accepts everything was not entirely the developers’ fault.

Standards have been raised and will rise further as the new regulatory system becomes live.

All developers know they work on a level playing field rather than one that allows very varying interpretations of corner-cutting and of deciding what was, and was not allowed. The issue of “proportionality” on existing stock will take time to develop, but can at least do so without pretending that previous regulations worked.

What we do not know yet is what the government contract that the developers are required to sign will say. The option of withholding planning permission for anyone who refuses to sign the remediation contract is something LKP has called for from the start. If companies refuse to remediate their buildings, why on earth should they be allowed to build more?

What happens after the developers sign will get more complex.

Not all buildings can be remediated immediately. There will be arguments over what should and should not be corrected under the contract.

We are already hearing stories of some developers seeking to control the remediation projects being carried out by third party contractors working for the “building owner” (that is, the freehold owning landlord), and of others seeking to limit the level of remediation. In some other jurisdictions, they have considered an independent arbitrator to prevent yet more arguments about what should be done and what might legitimately be considered as betterment.

Two major issues remain.

Those deemed as “unqualified leases”. These are leasehold flat owners who do not benefit from the protections because they own multiple homes.

As a result, someone owning a portfolio of four flats in, say, the North East worth £600,000, with three them being their buy-to-let pension, will have no protections from a number of costs. On the other hand, a leaseholder in London with one flat worth £1 million will benefit.

The concept of deeming a flat “unqualified” or “qualified” in perpetuity depending on its ownership on the 14th February 2022 will inevitably damage the housing market long into the future as the system applies to all future buyers.

The waterfall.

This term was invented by another LKP trustee Liam Spender. This was the government’s idea of layered protections, but the sites that sit at the bottom of the waterfall are those where the leaseholders own the freehold and the developer no longer exists.

They still sit drowning in the potential costs, and the government must do something to support them given that Mr Gove also explained in his interview his plan for the abolition of leasehold, which will be the biggest change in housing law in more than 100 years if it moves forward.

Related posts:

LendleaseMichael Gove gets the cartel of taxpayer subsidised housebuilders to pay up £5bn towards the building safety scandal … but not Lendlease or Galliard build safety summitAnd so the building safety crisis lurches towards mass forfeitures … Leaseholders helped over building safety crisis is now a ‘bizarre lucky dip’, say MPs Robert Jenrick claddingJenrick: ‘We owe it to Grenfell community to get building safety right’ Reviewer of building regulations admits post-Grenfell safety regime open to abuse by rogue freeholders

Category: Cladding scandal, Latest News, News, PressTag: Cladding scandal, Dame Judith Hackitt, Dean Buckner, Grenfell cladding, Health and Safety Executive, Lakanal House, Liam Spender, Lucy Brown-Cortes, Michael Gove, Ronnie King OBE, Sir David Amess, The Sunday Times, Welsh Government

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @LKPleasehold

Mentions

Anthony Essien (34) APPG (37) ARMA (87) Bellway (30) Benjamin Mire (32) Cladding scandal (71) Clive Betts MP (31) CMA (45) Commonhold (52) Competition and Markets Authority (41) Countryside Properties plc (33) FirstPort (42) Grenfell cladding (56) Ground rents (54) Harry Scoffin (150) James Brokenshire MP (31) Jim Fitzpatrick (35) Jim Fitzpatrick MP (30) Justin Bates (40) Justin Madders MP (67) Katie Kendrick (37) Law Commission (60) LEASE (66) Leasehold Advisory Service (62) Leasehold houses (32) Long Harbour (48) Martin Boyd (80) McCarthy and Stone (39) National Leasehold Campaign (38) Persimmon (49) Peverel (61) Property tribunal (49) Redrow (30) Retirement (37) Robert Jenrick (33) Roger Southam (47) Sajid Javid (38) Sebastian O’Kelly (55) Sir Peter Bottomley (201) Taylor Wimpey (106) Tchenguiz (33) The Guardian (33) The Times (31) Vincent Tchenguiz (43) Waking watch contracts (40)
Previous Post: « After seven efforts at reform – with more on the way – Sections 21 and 22 of Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 are still flawed service charge protections
Next Post: Mr Spender goes to war over St David’s Square service charges … and landlord caves in over more than £100,000 buildings insurance commissions on eve of tribunal »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. joe smith

    January 30, 2023 at 6:32 am

    If anyone thinks this dysfunctional Government will pass any major legislation in the two years it has left , especially one as complicated as abolishing leasehold I have a bridge to sell.

    • David

      January 30, 2023 at 7:05 am

      “Gove vows to scrap ‘feudal’ leasehold system this year” – headline in The Times. Somewhat misleading as the opening line of the story under the headline is “Michael Gove has pledged to bring forward laws to scrap MOST “feudal” leaseholds in England this year”.
      I share your scepticism anyway. Is the bridge leasehold or freehold?

  2. Stephen Burns

    January 30, 2023 at 3:38 pm

    Extract of a newspaper article

    “The housing secretary said he wanted to abolish leasehold ownership by the end of this parliament, which is expected to be next year. It would have significant implications for the nearly one in five homes in England – 4.8m of the total – that are leasehold owned” He told Sky News: ” We want to introduce legislation in the final parliamentary session of this calendar year to change the leasehold system. it’s not easy in legal terms because you’ve got a tangle of deals going back hundreds of years – unstitching all of that is difficult – but the fundamental thing is that leasehold is an unfair form of property ownership”

    I for one welcome that announcement and totally agree that “leasehold is an unfair form of property ownership” Radical change is long overdue, and It looks like Mr. Gove has just “fired” the starting pistol. I wish him the very best in achieving his objective’s and hope for a speedy outcome

    • martin

      January 31, 2023 at 6:56 pm

      We will write more about the announcements on the leasehold reforms in another article. Or maybe quite a few articles over the next 6 months. I hope you saw the shadow secretary of state making a very supportive speech and nodding her support for the reforms in the debate the yesterday. With all three parties calling for reform its now a matter of when not if and when the reforms happen they will be quite large

      • David

        February 1, 2023 at 8:05 am

        I don’t like the use of this word REFORMS. Leasehold is either ABOLISHED or it is not abolished.

      • Stephen Burns

        February 1, 2023 at 2:14 pm

        Martin,

        I listened to the whole statement and the debate that followed. Mr. Gove is an excellent orator and went much further than I had hoped for in terms of planned radical reform. In my opinion he won over all party support, I detected an element of real enthusiasm from the opposition. Rarely have I witnesses the house agreeing on what is such a controversial subject,

Above Footer

Advising leaseholders. Avoiding disasters.
Stopping forfeiture. Exposing abuses. Urging reform.

We depend on individuals for the majority of our funding.

Support Us and Donate

LKP Managing Agents

Become an LKP Managing Agent

Common Ground
Adam Church
Blocnet property management2

Stay in Touch

To achieve victory in the leasehold game where you are playing against professionals and with rules that they know all too well - stay informed with the LKP newsletter.
Sign Up for Newsletter

Professional Directory

The following advertisements are from firms that seek business from leaseholders.
Click on the logos for company profiles.

Footer

About LKP

  • What is LKP
  • Privacy and data

Categories

  • News
  • Cladding scandal
  • Commonhold
  • Law Commission
  • Fleecehold
  • Parliament
  • Press
  • APPG

Contact

Leasehold Knowledge Partnership
Open Data Institute
5th Floor
Kings Place
London N1 9AG

sok@leaseholdknowledge.com

Copyright © 2023 Leasehold Knowledge Partnership | All rights reserved
Leasehold Knowledge Partnership Limited (company number: 08999652) is a company limited by guarantee that is a registered charity (number: 1162584) with the Charities Commission.
LKP website is hosted at www.34sp.com
Website by Callia Web