Conveyancing Association responds to Government proposals on unfair leasehold practices

25 July 2017

Below is a comment from the Conveyancing Association in response to the Government’s new proposals to cut out unfair abuses of leasehold.

Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at The Conveyancing Association, said:

“We are delighted to see the Government responding to such a significant weight of evidence from leaseholders and stakeholders in the property industry, and producing proposals intended to prevent additional homeowners getting caught by escalating ground rents and unreasonable consent fees. We look forward to hearing more details on these proposals and hope they will deal with the single biggest loophole, the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act, which currently excludes leasehold homeowners from having any protection from unreasonable fees and unreasonable delays when buying, selling or simply improving their property. This loophole means that one particular landlord openly continues to charge £300 for a Deed of Covenant when the First Tier Tribunal issued a judgement against them three years ago saying these should only cost £80. We hope the Government will consider the leasehold reform proposals submitted by the Legal Sector Group last month and, in the meantime, at the Conveyancing Association we will continue our work to find a better method of tenure for properties with shared amenities. We are shortly undertaking a research study on Commonhold and hope that as many Commonholders as possible will respond to help us understand what it would take to make Commonhold a viable alternative to leasehold. After all, why should the number of years which a person can possess and live in a property reduce each year when they have paid the same amount for it as they would have done if it was freehold?”