Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on her opening remarks, and on the work her Committee has done to produce its report. It was an exceptional read—I thank her and her Committee.

I am seeing increasing numbers of cases where leaseholders experience a range of problems, including high service and administration charges, a lack of transparency, overcharging, disproportionate costs to extend leases or buy freeholds, poor actions by managing agents, a slow and costly sales process, and imbalanced dispute mechanisms with leaseholders potentially liable for the freeholder’s legal costs. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the retirement village up in Ben Rhydding in my constituency.

For the past year, I have been working with the Clevedon owners group, who have experienced real-life examples of how the current leasehold framework governing the integrated retirement sector falls well short of the standard that should be expected. The Clevedon owners group is made up of a group of leaseholders at the Audley Clevedon retirement village in Ben Rhydding. They have experienced repeated failures by their landlord to fulfil some of the most fundamental obligations contained within their leases, while the landlord continues to collect substantial service charges. The owners group estimates that the Audley Group collects approximately £30 million of annual service charges a year across its whole estate, with £3.5 million of deferred service charges, yet its residences are falling into disrepair and the freeholder is not updating its commitments or undertaking its responsibilities.

The owners group has highlighted to me that its biggest concern is around the legal definition of the service charge and, crucially, whether certain mandatory payments in retirement leases fall within the statutory definition of a service charge under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The experiences of those residents in the Audley retirement village demonstrate exactly why this seemingly technical issue has profound and real consequences. Leaseholders have paid substantial monthly management charges and deferred management charges on the understanding that the funds would maintain their homes, safeguard communal facilities and ensure the long-term sustainability of their residential community. It is clear from the meetings that I have had with my constituents that that simply is not the case. Instead, their properties have gone unserviced, which presents serious questions about how the annual service charge and those funds are being used. Following years of expansion, heavy borrowing and financial difficulties, maintenance across the Audley Clevedon retirement village has reportedly declined significantly, despite leaseholders continuing to pay increased service charges. That needs to change, and I respect some of the recommendations in the report on that point.

Does the Minister have any intention of commissioning an independent forensic audit of major retirement community operators to examine corporate governance, financial arrangements, service charge accounting, deferred management charges and compliance with lease obligations? Can he confirm that leaseholders in retirement housing, including integrated retirement communities, will not be excluded from the protections of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024? The current legal framework has failed to keep pace with increasingly complex corporate structures. If confidence in retirement housing is to be restored, residents must be given the protection, transparency and accountability that they rightly expect.