Siobhain McDonagh
Main Page: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Gentleman is nodding; that is the situation in the case that he mentioned. That can lead to unfairness, because the leaseholder will have no choice but to pay the costs of proceedings as an administration charge, regardless of the proceedings. That discourages leaseholders from exercising their rights to challenge the amount of a service charge, particularly as the landlord’s costs in the proceedings could well exceed the amount that is being disputed. The commencement planned early in the new year of section 131 of the Housing and Planning Act will enable the tribunal or court to consider, on application by the leaseholder, whether it is reasonable for a landlord to recover all or part of those costs.
The complicated nature of leasehold can make it challenging for people to ensure that they follow the correct legal procedures. To help leaseholders to navigate through the system, the Government provide access to free, independent legal advice and information through the leasehold advisory service, or LEASE, as it is known. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West referred to it in his speech. Last year, Government provided LEASE with more than £1 million of funding, and 850,000 people across the country benefited from free advice.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
May I, through the Minister, thank LEASE for all the work that it does to help my constituents, and for always being willing to attend residents’ meetings to give advice when people feel all at sea about this complicated area?
Gavin Barwell
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. It is good that people are paying tribute to LEASE for the important work that it does, and which I know is very much valued by people right across the country.
I want to reassure the House that the Government remain committed to ensuring leaseholders have the best professional advice available to them. Given its increasingly important role, I want to make sure that LEASE is properly equipped to offer help to everybody who needs it. Particularly in the light of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West, we will look again at how it works, its funding model and its membership.
In conclusion, this well-informed debate has raised important issues affecting millions of people in this country. We take all the issues raised very seriously, as I hope has been indicated by the tone of my speech. We have a strong interest in making sure that the system works as effectively as possible, and we are looking at suggestions for alternative systems, but this issue clearly needs attention. The motion states that the House “has considered” this issue, and I want to reassure my hon. Friend that it will be considered by the Government and that we will come back in the new year with proposals on how to tackle it.