The Government has today launched a consultation designed to ban new homes being sold as leaseholds.
It says the problem is particularly pronounced in the north west, and that the number of leasehold sales in England is growing “rapidly”.
Communities secretary Sajid Javid said: “It’s clear that far too many new houses are being built and sold as leaseholds, exploiting home owners with unfair agreements and spiralling ground rents.
“Enough is enough.
“These practices are unjust, unnecessary and need to stop.”
The consultation is to last eight weeks. It proposes setting ground rents to zero levels and closing legal loopholes.
It says that leaseholds can make homes unsaleable, citing a family home where the ground rent would hit £10,000 a year by 2060, and another where a home owner would be charged £1,500 to make a small alteration to their home. In a third case, the home owner buying a lease worth £2,000 would be charged a total of £40,000.
The proposed prohibition of future homes being sold as leasehold will apply to all houses apart from those built where, for example, homes have shared services or are built on land with specific restrictions.
The proposals would apply in England only. Government statistics estimate that there were 4m residential leasehold dwellings in England in the private sector in 2014/2015.
The consultation is here:
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Its the whole CON of why this has started in the first place. As we all know a lease of a block of flats is necessary for lots of different reasons. Yes there is a financial gain for the building owner, but it also clarifies many issues for the property owner. With houses, i do not see the need for a lease, i do not see any benefit for the homeowner, i only see a benefit for the developer, and their only role seems to be then selling the leases on in bulk to another company as soon as the development is finished. I do hope this is something that Government has a sincere interest in dealing with rather than just telling us what we want to hear, but years down the line bringing this to an end becomes mired in a lack of enthusiasm to end the problem
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Its called ‘the govt. is asleep at the wheel and only does its job when the media calls it out….this means that unless the problem is a massive main stream issue nothing will ever get done. This is why purplebricks are still trading. The media is confused by it at the moment.
People still think they are free!!!
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