Oral Answers to Questions

Allison Gardner Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

The national planning framework will set out further how we intend to provide key support to local authorities and to work closely with local authorities to ensure the issue is addressed.

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

8. What steps she plans to take to reform the leasehold system.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

The Government are committed to finally bringing the feudal leasehold system to an end. To do so, we will implement the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, enact the remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the right to manage, take steps to make commonhold the default tenure for new flats, and tackle unaffordable and unregulated ground rent charges. As set out in the King’s Speech, draft legislation will be published in due course.

[Dr Gardner]

Many of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent South have contacted me in the past few weeks, including those from Blythe Bridge, telling me how the archaic fleecehold system has left them at the mercy of poor management agents. They have been tricked into purchasing homes that are not covered by right to manage in the same way as flats, with service charges more than doubling, and the developers and managing agents reneging on promises to upkeep and, in some cases, even build the necessary infrastructure on their development. Does the Government have plans to hold those managing agents and developers to account, perhaps with legal requirements of provision or a licensing scheme?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The distinct set of problems faced by residential freeholders that my hon. Friend describes are well known and understood. As we set out in our manifesto, the Government are committed to bringing the injustice of fleecehold private housing estates and unfair maintenance costs to an end. We intend to consult publicly on the best way to achieve that. In the interim, we will move to implement the new protections against unfair charges that were contained in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.