Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when the Government plans to bring forward legislative proposals to create a new statutory regime to ensure that freeholders that pay maintenance charges can access equivalent rights to those of leaseholders.

The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. Where people pay estate rent charges it is not appropriate that these homeowners have limited rights to challenge these costs.

That is why the Government intends to give freeholders on private and mixed tenure estates equivalent rights to leaseholders to challenge the reasonableness of estate rentcharges, as well as a right to apply to the First-tier Tribunal to appoint a new manager to manage the provision of services.

We will translate these measures into law when parliamentary time allows. We are committed to a long-term programme of reform to make sure that homeowners experience the benefits of true home ownership.