Housing Minister Grant Shapps is alone in resisting leasehold regulation saying it will add to costs and landlords don’t want it … even though the British Property Federation, which represents the country’s largest landlords, has assured LKP that it favours the move.
But why – for the sake of consistency – does this minister feel so strongly on the subject of park homes, which he plans to license?
Park homes suffer similar issues to leasehold properties, including inflated service charges and poor maintenance. Yet Shapps wants regulation as part of “sensible, practical proposals, targeted at the worst practices and minimising the burden on those who do a good job for their residents”.
Admittedly there have been cases of park home landlords burning down the mobile homes of those who have complained, which to date is not a feature of leasehold living.
In other respects, the issues are very similar. Was it too much to expect some coherence and consistency from this minister?
Related posts:
Grant Shapps and Siobhan McGrath face TV cameras today
Park homes like leasehold with serious menace added, LKP tells Guardian
Shapps: ‘I have not ruled out making changes to leasehold’
Lonely Shapps: the only one who doesn’t think there is a need for leasehold regulation
Why has it taken so long to regulate the leasehold sector?
The leasehold sector is, in the words of one solicitor employed by the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE)’ ‘One of the most highly regulated in society.’ He said this in the context of one managing agent who demanded from me ‘proof’ that service charge funds should be held in statutory trust. The solicitor advised me, in effect, not to answer on the basis that the MA should know the answer because he was earning his keep in a highly regulated sector.
Speaking as a disenchanted lessee, I’d agree. It’s surely not the lack of regulation in the leasehold sector that is to blame for the greed and corruption so commonplace among service providers, but the fact that the regulations are either ignored altogether or, more usually – and cynically, abused to suit their own commercial interests.
If the leasehold sector wishes to self-regulate, it must start by getting to grips with the cowboy element within its ranks.
Perhaps Shapps intends to extend the regulations applicable to the mainstream leasehold sector to park homes?