Leasehold Properties: Building Insurance

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This Government are committed to promoting fairness and transparency for tenants and homeowners and to making sure that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. I assure him that we remain determined to drive up professionalism and standards among all property agents, and we continue to work with the industry on improving best practice across the property agent sector.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, would not the problems referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, be largely eliminated if more leaseholders bought the freehold, thereby avoiding the potential of abuse by the current freeholder? Will the promised leasehold reform Bill make it easier for leaseholders to enfranchise, and will it remove some of the obstacles used by unscrupulous freeholders to deny enfranchisement?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to the work he does on housing. The Government remain determined in their promise better to protect leaseholders and empower them to challenge unreasonable costs, and to make it easier and cheaper for them to extend their lease or buy their freehold. We wish to extend the benefits of freehold ownership to more homeowners, and in line with our manifesto commitments, we will continue leasehold reform within this Parliament. We are working closely with the Law Commission to bring forward game-changing reforms to the system and we thank the commission for all the work it has done in this area to date. However, the Government cannot pre-empt the King’s Speech, which we expect by the autumn, by confirming what will or will not be in future legislation.