UK leasehold law is often ambiguous, outdated and desperately in need of reform. Too frequently innocent leaseholders find themselves in expensive and technical legal proceedings at the mercy of unscrupulous freeholders.
Although repossession of a leasehold property by the freeholder is relatively rare. The freeholder can often rely on a technical breach of a lease term to pressure the tenant into selling the property to him or her at significantly below market value. In addition, leaseholders regularly have to pay hefty premiums to extend lease lengths, just to be able to renew their mortgage or refinance the property. Whereby, once again unscrupulous landlords can charge extortionate or unreasonable sums to cash strapped leaseholder households.
How would we reform the present leasehold system;
1.Make commonhold compulsory for all new developments of twenty flats or more. Commonhold would give tenants more protection for and control of the property. Whilst in parallel, giving leaseholders collectively decision making capacity over matters such as maintenance and scope of works.
2.Enable, in blocks of twenty flats or more, the leaseholders by simply majority vote to convert their tenure from leasehold to commonhold. In this way, freeholders are encouraged to be competitive or face losing some of their freehold rights in exchange for nominal fees.
3.Limit further freeholders’ rights of forfeiture. So that a landlord can only take over your lease where there are very substantial arrears of service charges and or ground rent.
4.Simplify the process and reduce the cost of lease extensions. Leases would be extended at a standard cost of 0.005% of market value for each year of increase.
5.Set up the Leasehold Service Charges Tribunal LSCT, to arbitrate on the fairness of service charge bills. Currently, the punishment for leaseholders who dispute service charges is to lose their lease as a result of having to pay expensive legal bills. The LSCT would provide a swift and economical mechanism to adjudicate on these disputes without putting the leaseholder at risk of forfeiture and financial ruin.
Leasehold reform should transcend ideology and party politics. We would therefore establish the Leasehold Reform Panel comprising of representatives from all the main political parties and various landlord and tenant groups to facilitate this radical orientation of leasehold law towards protecting everyday British families and households.
