There is a move within the Labour Party to regulate the leaseholders service contracts and those delivering on them.
It may sound good governance to those in Government but it isn’t. In my business (pensions) we have seen our regulator grow every year in the past 21 since it was started and it now finds it hard to get things done. A housing regulator is not what those who are fighting to free leaseholders want or need.
@LeonjWard The right to manage exists. Yes it can and should be stronger. But in reality residents are never going to directly actually manage every day to day service. They’ll contract to a managing agent / property company. They need to improve. The cost of failure is already being felt
— Danny Beales MP (@DannyBeales) October 3, 2026
Leon Ward puts the leaseholders best interests first. I fear that Danny Beales MP has been influenced by bad actors who will hide behind regulation to continue as they always have.
Harry Scoffin picks up where Leon left off
Taking back control means giving power to people, not unelected regulators and Big Money lobbyists.
Give leaseholders a universal Right to Manage.
Put leaseholders in control of their homes, money and lives.
Free them from a scammy rentier industry and rescue the flats market.
— Harry Scoffin (@HarryScoffin) October 2, 2026
Harry and Free Leaseholder say capping admin fees is fine, but it is nothing compared with tackling much bigger service charges, which are making homes unmortgage able and unsellable.
Regulators too often get captured by the industries they are meant to police, while the costs of running this one will ultimately be passed down to leaseholders.
Freeholder lobbyists at the RFA and managing agent lobbyists at TPI support the regulator. They are not scared of it. That should tell you all you need to know. The law must change to end freeholder-controlled management monopolies in flats, giving leaseholders a much easier Right to Manage so they can switch managing agents and control their service charges.
I’ll leave the final word to Harry. He has worked too hard on this not to listen to his impassioned plea not to let the Government be captured through a regulator
Hello Henry,
Free Leaseholders (FL)
Who are they?
Valiant as the FL campaign is, it is not really clear who FL are. On its website it defaults to only Mr H Scoffin (is he a lawyer?). The associated YouTube video is hosted by Mr Scoffin and gives the background of a number of FL campaigners who, sadly, are ‘caught in the leasehold trap’. Is that all there is to the FL organisation? Since you introduced FL onto your blog, I have read their various posts with interest since I too am in the ‘trap’ However while I am (luckily) on a specified Ground Rent of £100 for a few years yet, I will nevertheless lend my weight to others in a more invidious situation. Our problems here, at this estate, are the Landlords Managing Agents and the associated Service Charges (SC)
My experience to date with the FL campaign is as follows:
i. I enquired what their view was of the First Tier Tribunal. A quick reply was ‘unreliable’. As someone who has tried it three times and come unstuck on two of them – I fully agree.
ii. I enquired of what success FL was having with the Parliamentary Select Committee – no reply
iii. I have recently enquired of whether they knew of any SE London lawyer who was successful at defending lessees – no reply. We need one here to carry on with our own ‘battle’ regardless of the FL campaign
iv. Two donations have been submitted to FL, both were met by an agency requiring extra for their administration. They gave receipts but no acknowledgement (perhaps I am being old-fashioned).
v. In the early autumn I submitted some comments to FL regarding an important Government Questionnaire they had circulated that required everybody’s detailed attention and action within 24 hours. I felt that FL’s guidance there was incomplete etc. That brought an immediate reply in which Mr Scoffin informed that he did this FL campaign voluntarily in his leisure time. Understood and, obviously, he does a very good job in communicating his outrage at the regulation
Let us look at Mr Scoffin’s impressive effort at the recent Parliamentary Select Committee Hearing. Supported by a former Secretary of State (Michael Gove) and a former Deputy PM (Angela Raynor), I think they successfully convinced the Committee that there was an urgent need to resolve this contentious situation regarding lessees Ground Rents etc. The Lessors, meanwhile, just provided an (expensive) lawyer to formally represent them. Mr Scoffin stated his views along with an associate from another similar leaseholders rights campaign (possibly the National Leasehold Campaign NLC). If the NLC objective is the same, why don’t they merge as a single unified campaign? From the NLC website that, too, appears to be a ‘grass roots’ campaign. If so, how many of their members are lawyers, surveyors, etc who are skilled in their knowledge of the particular Freehold Regulation and the amendments desired by lessees in the urged revision? Why is this skill necessary? Because the Freeholders are continually resisting Parliament amending the status quo. So far, I suggest, the Freeholders are easily winning e.g. behind the scenes they may well have had something to do with the Government dumping the subject twice from the Parliamentary schedule.
Another query: how many MPs and Members of the House of Lords are freeholders? Perhaps they too are also eagerly hoping that the proposed revision founders and might well help it do so. Any Lobbyist will happily explain how to promote issues through Parliament and it’s likely that that Freeholders will be doing just that since they have the funds and the facilities needed e.g. Duke of Westminster. Staff at the Ministry of Housing who control this regulation will, I suggest, be far happier liaising with solicitors representing formal groups, rather than discussion etc with various grass roots campaigners with no legal representation. At the end of the day any amendment rests on the agreed legal text in the regulation.
Returning to the Select Committee above, the campaigners may have won that battle but, are they likely to lose the subsequent war for the need of formal organisation and representation necessary to oppose the freeholders submissions etc.
Kind regards,
Tim Simpson