Leasehold Properties: Building Insurance

Lord Best Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Lord for the work he has done on this subject and for his many years of public service, for his party and his community, as a councillor in Southwark.

We are committed to working with industry to bring down premium increases in the first instance. The Secretary of State has asked the FCA to do whatever it can to press insurance brokers to reduce unreasonable fees ahead of government action to ban managing agents, landlords and freeholders taking commissions when they take out buildings insurance. The Association of British Insurers is planning to launch a scheme for buildings with fire safety issues and very high premiums by summer 2023 at the latest. Ministers will continue to monitor the progress of the scheme and have made it clear that they expect the scheme to be delivered by summer 2023 to provide urgent assistance to affected buildings. I am very happy to meet with the noble Lord and engage with members of the National Leasehold Campaign; I pay tribute to the work it has done.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, taking commission surreptitiously on insurance premiums is one of the many ways that managing agents, unfortunately, sometimes behave very badly, and that includes exit fees, permission fees and service charges that go up. I think there is now almost universal recognition that we need a regulator for property agents—estate agents, letting agents and managing agents—and that is certainly what the industry itself is asking for. Would the Minister welcome an amendment to the Renters (Reform) Bill or a leasehold reform Bill, when we get it, to introduce a regulator for property agents?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This Government are committed to promoting fairness and transparency for tenants and homeowners and to making sure that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. I assure him that we remain determined to drive up professionalism and standards among all property agents, and we continue to work with the industry on improving best practice across the property agent sector.