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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of protection in place for people and organisations that have leasehold interests in land from freeholds being sold by local authorities to third parties.

We are constantly working to ensure that protection for leaseholders is adequate. That is why on 21 December 2017, the Government set out a package of measures to tackle abuses and unfair practices in the leasehold market. This includes introducing legislation to prohibit the development of new build leasehold houses, other than in exceptional circumstances, restricting ground rents in newly established leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn (zero financial value) and working with the Law Commission to support existing leaseholders - including making buying a freehold or extending a lease easier, faster, fairer and cheaper. As part of the reform, we will consider extending the existing Right of First Refusal for flat lessees (Part 1 of the Landlord Act 1987) to house lessees. In general, the provision states that where a landlord is proposing to sell his interest in a building containing flats in relation to which the Right of First Refusal exists, they must, by law, first offer it to the tenants before offering it on the open market.