Labour has promised to change key rules that affects five million homes in England and Wales. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said the Government is aiming to roll out an outright ban on new leasehold developments. It comes after hundreds of complaints from leaseholders about huge service charges and the condition of buildings.
With an aim to improve the situation, ministers are working on ideas to make it easier for homeowners to jointly own the buildings in which they live. The White Paper may include a ban on developers selling new flats under the system. Mr Pennycook told the Guardian: “If I had said to any leaseholder five, 10 years ago that in a single parliament the government is going to bring the system to an end, I think any of them would have said that is incredibly ambitious, incredibly radical.”
“When we get it done, it will have lasting, generational impact in overhauling a system, which is a feudal right. Freehold was used in the Domesday Book, you know, the concept of leasing goes back to serfs being able to work a plot of land.
“This arrangement has been in place for centuries and is essentially, in some ways, unchanged.
“It’s land owned by someone else who grants the right of use of that land to another person.
“That is why it’s inherently unfair. That is why, in many ways, leaseholders are second-class homeowners – that’s what we’ve got to change.”
It comes as the behaviour of some freeholders and building managers has increasingly become a concern.
They have been accused of levying fees for services that do not exist and failing to make repairs they’ve charged for.
Mr Pennycook added: “A proposal to make it easier for leaseholders to manage their own properties, for example, was written in such a way that it could have allowed building owners a vote on whether that should happen.
“That serves as a warning to what happens if you’re going to rush things through and not ensure that the reforms are watertight.
“So we’re trying to balance doing things as fast as possible, but also ensuring that we get the get everything right so it’s to the lasting benefit of leaseholders.”
