Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Third sitting)

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have five minutes left. I will turn to Lee Rowley but please bear in mind that I want to bring in Barry as well.

[The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)]

Q I do not want to divert the Committee away from the core discussion, but I will just pick up on something that yourself and Mike discussed a moment ago. On sub-11 metre buildings and potential challenges with fire safety, would you accept that our standards are life-critical safety standards, and that the likelihood of an issue in a sub-11 metre building is substantially lower than one in a building above 11 metres? Fundamentally, it is unlikely that those buildings would need remediation to the extent that would be needed in higher buildings. That is an accepted position of your members, I presume.

Paul Broadhead: That is absolutely an accepted position. The point I think you are getting to is that sometimes there is still an EWS1 form requested on sub-11 metre buildings. As I mentioned earlier, the lender is the expert in mortgage lending, not in building safety, and the surveyor on the ground will have their own gangs from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors that they follow. If they come back and report that it needs further investigation, the lender has to take that at face value, because that is their expert.

[Lee Rowley]

I am not sure that I would accept that, but I will take that up with you and your members separately.

[Barry Gardiner]

Q I will pick up briefly on what you said to Mr Carter about the way in which sometimes your members were advising people, “Actually, this is leasehold, and there are these additional costs, and service charges are so expensive that we are not prepared to lend to you.” Are there any particular freeholders who have a reputation in the industry for doing that? I am thinking of people such as the Freshwater or Persimmon Homes, or any who seem to be known for their excessive service charges. Is there an automatic flag for them in the industry? Sitting where you are, you would have parliamentary privilege to name them.

Paul Broadhead: Parliamentary privilege notwithstanding, no, we do not have individual organisations I could point to. I certainly do not get reports from my members.