The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill has passed but it will only provide limited relief to leaseholders.
This parliament ends with the Tories having failed to enact bold leasehold reform.
Labour will finally bring the archaic and iniquitous leasehold system to an end.
— Matthew Pennycook MP (@mtpennycook) May 24, 2024
If there can have been a more petty and mean-spirited closure to a Government’s legislative campaign than the lobotomization of the Freeholders and Leaseholder’s Bill, show me it!
A few unelected Tory peers with undoubted self-interest, blocked the capping of ground rents because they had run out of time to scrutinise the idea. RUN OUT OF TIME!
The Conservative party introduced the proposal to reduce ground rents to peppercorn levels in its 2019 manifesto, nearly five years ago. The vested interests who own the freeholds of the blocks of flats and private dwellings that millions of leaseholders live in have been getting no value for money from paying these ground rents for decades and got none over the lifetime of this soon to be deceased Government. Now we face the prospect of more uncertainty until a time comes for a proper Government to honour what is now a cross-party promise. It does not take five years to work out that ground rents are a rotten way of charging extra via the back door.
The complicity of the funds industry, even the pension funds industry, in this VFM rip-off shows just how far we are from having a universal consumer duty. The PLSA’s name has been used by the Freeholder’s Association to argue that the charging of extortionate ground rents pays their pensions. If it does, it is in such a minority of cases that they have yet to name one pension scheme that relies on this source of income. If it did, that scheme would immediately become the object of opprobrium for any organisation that takes the “S” in ESG seriously. Can it be anything but anti-social that those who pay rent in retirement, pay ground rent too, that those who have purchased leaseholds have to pay a residual income stream to the freeholder simply to make an asset class pay gilts + income streams?
The consultants who have advocated this form of investment (and I have sat through the presentations) are now shy about it, but I know who they are and I hope that they will repent at leisure for their part in this debacle.
Some schemes , such as the Railways Pension , that did invest in funds profiteering from ground rents have sold their holdings and renounced the practice – those who remain invested will I hope do likewise or risk being named and shamed over time. There is no future in these funds. Sell at a loss rather than holding on for the grim death.
The future is undoubtedly in the hands of the righteous. Our thanks are to those labour peers who tried (Bryn Davies especially). The future is not with the moral bankruptcy of Lord Moylan and his cronies but with those who believe in VFM and not “rip-off Britain”.
It’s not just the pension lobby but the charity lobby that’s been hi-jacked, this cleric was calling out against ground-rents because charities relied on them. I can’t put my feelings better than “Wharfgirl”
Who is this man? Suggesting that charitable works justify the exploitative way in which their income is earned. Would they say the same about the profits from slavery. Rev if u want more income put more bums in those church pews. That’s yr legitimate source of income. pic.twitter.com/9yEZLyPm6s
— wharfgirl (@wharfgirl) May 24, 2024
Those Lords, Ladies and Bishopes who filibustered the bill last night so there was no time to include the capping of ground rents will live in infamy as will the party they represent. It is time for a change and whatever Government we have from July 5th, I would have them no part of it. They have brought the upper house into disrepute and I hope that they will be held accountable , at least by these peers.
Well done to @SharonStevenage @LordRoyKennedy @mtpennycook too. You pushed hard. Now it’s down to Labour to put in place ground rent caps and removing forfeiture. @mtpennycook this needs to be done in the first King’s speech
— Rhys Martin (@SoR_rhys) May 24, 2024
Small wonder Michael Gove has walked away from parliament.
