• 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 / Sorry leasehold right to manage is ‘somewhat daunting’ says junior minister … but I’m not going to do a thing about it

Sorry leasehold right to manage is ‘somewhat daunting’ says junior minister … but I’m not going to do a thing about it

February 9, 2013 //  by Sebastian O'Kelly

DonFoster2Junior minister Don Foster (left) has defended his remark that the elderly and the vulnerable find exercising leasehold right to manage as “somewhat daunting”, which some leasehold residents find somewhat insulting.

Foster, who was made a parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department for Communities and Local Government in September 2012, says: “As this is a concern which a range of leaseholders have themselves expressed to me and to my colleagues, I cannot share the view that this is an insulting remark and it was certainly not intended as such.”

Foster’s remarks are made in a letter to fellow LibDem MP David Laws, who is the constituency MP of Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation activist Brian Reeves.

Many leaseholders are indignant that right to manage, which was introduced by the Labour government in 2002 as an important protection for leaseholders, is being thwarted by freeholders using every legal stratagem possible to frustrate the process.

Often the most belligerent freeholders also own or have an interest in the property management and are busily monetizing the asset with stealth commissions from insurance, energy suppliers, kick-backs from suppliers such as builders … as well as outright loaded service charges.

These abuses have been successfully challenged repeatedly at Leasehold Valuation Tribunals. This is why the leaseholders at St George’s Wharf in Vauxhall, central London, were repaid £1 million. It is why the leaseholders at Charter Quay, Kingston, received £500,000 in four LVT rulings. It is why Strand Court in Rye, a retirement complex, got back £11,500 from Peverel, which received stinging criticism in the ruling last year.

The reason why leaseholders find this reference to “somewhat daunting” – which has been repeated in other minister’s correspondence – somewhat insulting is because right to manage is not working as Parliament intended.

The leaseholders at Elim Court and Regent Court are locked in a desperate legal battle with their landlord, which will involve senior legal representation and appeals to the Land Tribunal. The claimed legal costs to be paid by the loser will be more than £30,000.

At Kingsmere in Brighton, where the leaseholders employed a lawyer who is a supposed expert in leasehold issues, were left with a legal bill of £33,000 after their right to manage was bungled in 2012.

Right to manage needs to be much easier and there needs to be more of it. Only by creating a market with a decent degree of “churn” will managing agents serve the interests of leaseholders, rather than serving those of the freeholders (and themselves).

Widespread right to manage would also help break up the overlarge – and controversial – managing agents who were doled out these contracts by the developers.

It is estimated that there have been only 4,365 right to manage applications since 2003, according to Paul Walentowicz, senior lecturer in housing at the Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford,

Ministers should ask themselves why right to manage is being hindered so determinedly – and why are Parliament’s intentions on this issue being frustrated.

Don Foster has been MP for Bath since 1992. He has a majority of 11, 883.

Foster has been a good deal more attentive to his own housing requirements than he is to those of leaseholders. On 13 October 2009, Foster became involved in the parliamentary expenses scandal as he announced that he was being asked to pay back a substantial sum of money in connection with a mortgage he had been claiming for. It was later revealed in the local press that the sum totalled £4,082.02.

Foster’s correspondence is published below.

DonFosterletter

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailHousing Minister Mark Prisk holds meeting with LKP – but keep pestering MPs! Default ThumbnailTory MP backs pensioners in leasehold right to manage dispute Default ThumbnailMinister holds roundtable talks on leasehold LKP managing agent Jones Associates wins right to manage for retirement site Huw Merriman calls for zero ground rents for retirement leasehold at prime minister’s questions

Category: News, Parliament, RTMTag: David Laws, Don Foster

Sign up to the LKP newsletter

Fill in the link here

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @LKPleasehold

Mentions

Anthony Essien (34) APPG (44) ARMA (91) Benjamin Mire (32) Cladding scandal (71) Clive Betts MP (33) CMA (46) Commonhold (55) Competition and Markets Authority (42) Countryside Properties plc (33) FirstPort (55) Grenfell cladding (56) Ground rents (55) Israel Moskovitz (32) James Brokenshire MP (31) Jim Fitzpatrick (36) Jim Fitzpatrick MP (31) Justin Bates (41) Justin Madders MP (75) Katie Kendrick (40) Law Commission (61) LEASE (68) Leasehold Advisory Service (65) Leasehold houses (32) Liam Spender (39) Long Harbour (51) Lord Greenhalgh (32) Martin Boyd (87) McCarthy and Stone (43) National Leasehold Campaign (42) Persimmon (49) Peverel (61) Property tribunal (49) Retirement (38) Robert Jenrick (33) Roger Southam (47) Sajid Javid (38) Sebastian O’Kelly (67) Sir Peter Bottomley (211) Taylor Wimpey (106) Tchenguiz (33) The Guardian (33) The Times (34) Vincent Tchenguiz (45) Waking watch contracts (40)
Previous Post: « Observer newspaper features Leasehold Knowledge Partnership – and warns of problems with joint freehold owners
Next Post: Plantation Wharf leasehold pensioner has forfeiture order on his £800,000 flat »

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.

Barry Passmore

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 © 2025 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