Leaseholders

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government where the public can obtain the details of their rights under Section 83 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 regarding the rights of leaseholders to seek redress against managing agents.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as a leaseholder.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the schemes themselves are primarily responsible for publicising their service to leaseholders. My department has issued a number of press releases on the government and LEASE websites, and included information about the redress schemes in the recently published How to Rent guide. Additionally, we will be sending information to 30,000 leaseholders via the LEASE mailing list.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Can he tell me whether the ombudsman, to whom one will now have the right to apply for redress, will have the powers under that scheme to rule that if the head lessee or freeholder is found to be at fault, they cannot charge the costs back to the very people who made the complaint and were justified in doing so? This has now become a most unfortunate practice.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, first, I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Lords register as a leaseholder and pay tribute to my noble friend’s consistent efforts in ensuring that the subject of leasehold remains on the Government’s agenda. In terms of the ombudsman, the chamber of the First-tier Tribunal stays, will continue to determine a wide range of residential leasehold disputes and will not be affected by the new requirement for managing agents to belong to redress schemes. For example, leaseholders and freeholders will still be able to ask the tribunal to decide whether a service charge demand is reasonable. Where the lease requires the freeholder to recover administration charges, the tribunal will still be able to issue orders to redress this.