Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents

James Asser Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point—as I mentioned, many colleagues will have dealt with similar cases. This is an issue that we want the Government to look seriously at, and one that has frequently been brought up in the Chamber. It is right that Members are advocating for their constituents, but local MPs or Housing Ministers should not have to name and shame these companies; we are talking about some of the largest managing agents in England. We are seeing patterns, with the same companies coming up time and again across the country. As MPs, our support for individual blocks and housing estates might result in small wins locally, but it is not addressing the root cause of the problem.

Our Committee surveyed over 7,000 homeowners, and found that the regulation of managing agents was the No. 1 action that homeowners wanted the Government to prioritise as part of their leasehold and commonhold agenda. In 2018, the Lord Best report proposed a new regulator to cover letting and managing agents, with a mandatory and enforceable code of practice. Lord Best recommended that this new body should be established as a statutory regulator for property agents, as there was no existing body that could take on that role. Even the managing agents themselves have told us that they would welcome Lord Best’s proposals for regulation and the professionalisation this would bring to the sector. We already have industry-funded professional bodies with their own codes, but self-regulation does not work.

[James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)]

I am dealing with huge numbers of groups of leaseholders, and one of the things we have discovered—with the managing agent very much as my hon. Friend is describing —is this habit of subcontracting, only for the leaseholders to find that the subcontractors are owned by the same company; the name has just been changed. When we raised this point, the answer we got from FirstPort last week was, “We can do what we want.” Does that not reinforce my hon. Friend’s argument about regulation?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Before the hon. Lady rises, I remind Members that this is a very oversubscribed debate, and I am sure that many people want to speak.