Leaseholders and Cladding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Kevin Hollinrake
Main Page: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)Department Debates - View all Kevin Hollinrake's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Leaseholders and Cladding
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Hilary Benn
The hon. Member makes a really important point. Lots of my constituents say to me, “But it was signed off under building regs. Surely that means it’s safe.” Well, it does not quite mean that, for reasons that we can go into on another occasion. It is part of the system that has still to be fixed.
Other leaseholders are drawn in because, even though their blocks have not been identified as having a problem, when they try to sell the flat the mortgage company says, “Okay—but, by the way, where’s the certificate that says that this building complies with the new regulations that the Government have, quite properly, put in place?” If they cannot produce it, the property is worthless and becomes unsellable. If that was not complicated enough, just to complete the story, the ownership structure of blocks and the history varies. The developers may have gone bust, the builders may no longer be trading, and some freeholders say, “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have the money to replace the cladding on this building.”
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is not simply that freeholders say, “I don’t have the money.” They do not have the obligation. Most freeholders do not have an obligation to mitigate any such problems. Perhaps the only people who do are the original developers—who, as the right hon. Member says, may not be there—or the leaseholders. Is that not the problem? As he rightly says, leaseholders in many cases have no means to pay for that remedial work.
Hilary Benn
The hon. Gentleman, who has great expertise in this matter, is correct. I will come to what the Government have said about the responsibility of freeholders, but I think the point we are all making is that this is not the fault of the leaseholders, who never expected when they bought that first dream home that this burden might fall upon them.