21 December 2017
Today, the Communities Secretary announced plans to deliver a fairer, more transparent system for leasehold homeowners in England.
Measures to be introduced include:
- legislating to prevent the sale of new build leasehold houses except where necessary such as shared ownership.
- making certain that ground rents on new long leases – for both houses and flats – are set at zero.
- working with the Law Commission to support existing leaseholders and make the process of purchasing a freehold or extending a lease much easier, faster and cheaper.
- providing leaseholders with clear support on the various routes to redress available to them.
- a wider internal review of the support and advice to leaseholders to make sure it is fit for purpose in this new legislative and regulatory environment.
- making sure freeholders have equivalent rights to leaseholders to challenge unfair service charges.
In addition, the Communities Secretary will be writing to all developers to strongly discourage the use of Help to Buy Equity loans for the purchase of leasehold houses in advance of legislation and to ask those who have customers with onerous ground rent terms to provide necessary redress.
The proposed measures follow the Government’s recent consultation – ‘Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market’ – which saw over 6,000 responses (see LEASE response).
The Government’s full response to the consultation can be seen here.
LEASE looks forward to working with the Government and all stakeholders in the sector to implement these measures and the deliver a fairer system for leasehold owners in England.
