Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of (a) reducing the charge for freehold information packs for individuals selling properties or (b) making those charges means tested.

FME1 Freehold management forms enquire about information such as the amount of estate rent charges or service charge equivalent, when acting for a buyer of a freehold that shares services with other houses. The rent charge owner, management company, managing agent or their appointed representative should provide this information. The FME1 is not mandatory. We believe that freeholders would also benefit from having more certainty about the cost and timescales for providing this information. We propose to use legislation to set the same timescale and cost for provision of freehold information as we have already committed to for the provision of leasehold sales packs.

We would want to ask whether the freehold packs should be subject to the same rules around cost and turnaround time as leasehold packs.