By Harry Scoffin Tens of thousands of consumer homeowners face having their freehold houses taken off them by developers if they “fall more than 40 days behind” on estate management payments, an investigation by BBC Radio 4’s MoneyBox has found. MoneyBox reported on Saturday that the number of houses subject to restrictive ‘rentcharges’ and estate […]
NLC conveyancing report on BBC R4 You and Yours today
A report on the conveyancing of rip-off leasehold properties, often with doubling ground rents and a host of management fees, featured on the influential BBC R4 You and Yours programme today. You and Yours – Book tax, Leasehold confusion, Sales of Insects for food – BBC Sounds Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show […]
MailOnline forensically examines Taylor Wimpey couple stuck in leasehold house with £590pa to Adriatic Land
MailOnline features a couple who bought a £150,000 house off Taylor Wimpey who were promised the freehold at ten times the £295 annual ground rent. But now the price has soared and Andrea, 35, and Roi Millward, 30, at Speakman Gardens, Prescot, Merseyside, cannot afford the freehold. Evidence provided by MailOnline indicates an error may […]
Mortgage lenders and conveyancers lay bare the rot of leasehold to MPs
… and MPs says profiteering freeholders will be treated ‘like Philip Green’ … LKP patrons call for another Commons debate on leasehold Mortgage lenders and conveyancers yesterday told MPs in the All Party Parliamentary Group that leasehold is in desperate need of legislative reform. The cautious Council of Mortgage Lenders, now renamed UK Finance, spoke […]
Leasehold needs to be reformed, BBC Money Box Live is told
This week saw a half-hour live discussion of leasehold issues on BBC R4 Money Box Live driven by mounting concerns over the leasehold houses scandal. The programme preamble, presented by Louise Cooper, pointed out that in the 1990s 22 per cent of all new builds were leasehold and the figure today is 43 per cent. […]
Conveyancing Association’s Beth Rudolph attacks the HomeOwners Alliance for ‘scaremongering’ over leasehold
… after inviting ‘sympathy’ for solicitors who landed leasehold house buyers with onerous lease terms Beth Rudolph, the spokesman for the Conveyancing Association, has launched an astonishing attack on the HomeOwners’ Alliance for “scaremongering” over leasehold. The two organisations, which have co-operated in the past – along with LKP – have fallen out over the […]
Questions from APPG attendees: Ground rent sale prices have risen tenfold since 2007
A number of key figures in leasehold were in the audience of the All Party Parliamentary Group and several asked questions. Ground rent sale prices have risen ten-fold since 2007 David Thomas, CEO of Barratt Developments In the North East and in the North West houses have traditionally been sold leasehold whether on the second […]
Conveyancing Association snubbed over bid to make freeholders join a redress scheme
The Conveyancing Association, which is clear eyed to the many issues in leasehold particularly concerning complications and costs over sale, has had a set-back in attempting to make freeholders members of a redress scheme. The idea is excellent, and should be taken up by Labour housing spokesmen, not least because so many residential freeholds are […]
Leasehold sales are bedevilled with ‘extortionate’ charges and game-playing, says the Conveyancing Association
… Conveyancing Association calls for enforcement of reasonable fees, and it wants Land Registry to register ‘lease administrators’ who handle sales
… It claims there is ‘an imbalance of bargaining power between the lease administrator and the leaseholder’
… 34 per cent of estate agents say leasehold sales are a ‘nightmare’
… LKP tells the Financial Times’ FTAdvisor publication that freeholders routinely stuff sales as a cash-raising tactic
… Leasehold transactions across all UK regions have risen to 260,000 in 2015 up from 220,000 in 2011 (Source: Land Registry)
… Today 57% of all transactions in Greater London and 40% in the North West are for leasehold properties
Sales of flats are routinely seen as an opportunity to squeeze ‘extortionate’ amounts of cash out of leaseholders by freeholders, says the Conveyancing Association.
Consumers are inadequately protected as lease administrators handling sales for freeholders are not required to be part of an ombudsman scheme or come under the jurisdiction of the First Tier Tribunal of the property chamber.
