Conveyancing Association comment on Labour Party report, ‘Ending the scandal: Labour’s new deal for leaseholders’

Below is a comment from the Conveyancing Association on today’s Labour Party report entitled, ‘Ending the scandal: Labour’s new deal for leaseholders’.

Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at the CA, said:

“We are delighted to see that the Labour Party has published a robust set of proposals as this confirms that leasehold reform is a cross-party issue and one which will not go away.

“Positive measures announced in this paper include the proposed capping of ground rent to £250 and the abolition of forfeiture – both will prevent leaseholders from losing their homes to unscrupulous landlords.

“We hope that the reference to administration and permission fees in the report also means that we can ensure any fee paid to a lease administrator during the home moving process, or when a leaseholder wishes to change their property or the use of it, will be reasonable.  The CA’s own research shows that as many as 80% of leaseholders are overcharged for some administration expenses by lease administrators when they buy their property. We have already provided a list of the fees which should be permitted at a rate set by the Secretary of State to MHCLG and hope that reasonable administration fees will be supported in Lord Best’s report on the Regulation of Property Agents due to be submitted to the Government later this week.

“We also support the proposals for leaseholders to buy their Freehold or convert to commonhold at reasonable and set premiums which will do away with the current confusing valuation mechanisms such as ‘hope value, development value, marriage value, relatively and the graph of graphs’ which mean nothing to the general public and have no place in providing security of ownership in someone’s hard earned home.”