The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities announced that the Renters Reform Bill will progress to the Report Stage, aiming to make the system fairer for landlords.

In a significant move, the government has decided on a £250 cap on ground rents, with a 20-year transition period to peppercorn.

This decision comes after intense lobbying by pension and insurance funds, with Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak siding with homeowners and voters over rent-seeking special interests. Leaseholders have mixed reactions to the announcement, with some seeing it as a step in the right direction, while others are disappointed with the 20-year transition period.

This is Twitter’s summation of the story using AI, I don’t know whether it is telling the story that is most relevant to me or the story I want to hear, but I have it independently corroborated that the worst excesses of the ground-renters will be curbed. I will be happier to pay the £250 maximum than the £800 our flat is currently being charged.

“If true & there’ll be an immediate £250 cap @10DowningStreet have sided with voters rather than rent seekers.
But they must further beef up the bill to honour @Conservatives manifesto, which pledged no more new leaseholds, including flats” @HarryScoffinhttps://t.co/qPnStr04kf

— Joe Douglas (@joedouglas90) April 21, 2024

Agreed.

Not in my name

The “intense lobbying of the insurance and pension industry” is not in my name. I can’t see how pension trustees exercise fiduciary duty by charging pensioners rack-rents on pain of forfeiture;  nor how it’s any insurer’s consumer duty to profit from these practices

I believe the PLSA has been played and is now hopelessly compromised. It should make an immediate statement supporting the control of ground rents, it supports other such controls, most notably the charge cap on workplace pensions designed to stop just such outrages.

The ABI should also make it clear that it does not wish to profit from a feudal system which gives the freeholders all the money but offers leaseholders no value.

Neither under fiduciary or consumer duty is the charging of ground rents as a percentage of leasehold value fair. Capping it at £250 is the best we can do today, let’s hope that a Government less in the pocket of the freehold lobby, will do the rest and ensure peppercorn rents by the end of the decade.

Thanks to our champions Norma Cohen and Harry Scoffin

These proposals are not perfect.

But an immediate £250 cap on ground rents and a phase-out is a compromise leaseholders should be able to live with.

However, we will hold back full judgement until the formal announcement is made and the details are published. https://t.co/h5NDoLJUM4

— Free Leaseholders (@FreeLeasehlders) April 21, 2024