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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to take steps to increase (a) consumer protection in respect of and (b) information on older people’s housing; and whether the Government plans to implement the recommendations made by the Law Commission in its report, Event fees in retirement properties, published in March 2017.

The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill currently in Parliament will put an end to ground rents for new residential leasehold properties as part of the most significant changes to property law in a generation. The Bill's provisions will lead to fairer, more transparent homeownership for thousands of future leaseholders.

This includes retirement properties, where purchasers of new leases will not be faced with financial demands for ground rent.

In 2017, the Law Commission published a report of their review of event fees on behalf of this Department. This followed concerns raised by the Competition and Markets Authority about the fairness of some retirement property leases that have resulted in leaseholders paying an event fee of between 0.25% and 30% of the sale price of the property when selling or sub-letting. Concerns were also raised about the lack of transparency of event fees for older people and their families when purchasing a leasehold retirement property. The Law Commission made a number of recommendations in its report, which can be downloaded at http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/event-fees-in-retirement-properties.

The Government responded to the Law Commission, thanking them for the report and agreeing to implement the majority of the recommendations.

The Government is considering two further recommendations, on succession rights and a database of leasehold retirement properties with event fees, and will respond in due course.