@luhc @team_greenhalgh @michaelgove @NLC_2019 @EOCS_Official @LKPleasehold you want “constructive” rather than “sniping”? Ok. First u need to get the analysis right. This isn’t a debate between 2 sides of equal weight & merit with opposing interests. Leasehold is undemocratic1/
2/ because we who pay have no control over how our money is spent. We are captives of a monopoly. In a 21st century democracy that should be unacceptable. No taxation without representation. Putting that right must be the priority.
3/ Much is made of the property rights of freeholders and developers but we have rights too. The only way out of the monopoly trap is to sell homes we once loved. Now it’s difficult, sometimes impossible to do that. Prices in our building are mostly sub 2005 when it opened
4/Don’t we too have a human rights case? I’d like to see that tested! Meanwhile my landlord just sold a flat from himself offshore to himself on shore thereby moving £2.8m out of reach of U.K. tax in the process. Price WAY above market value. But it’s perfectly legal.
5/Like most of the financial practices involved in leasehold and property management. It’s legalised pick-pocketing and chicanery.
6/Now to the constructive bit. Obviously my priority, like everyone else here, is the phased abolition of the vast bulk of leasehold. But what can’t be allowed to happen is reform of the future without first steps to abolish the suffering of the present.
7/You made that mistake with the Ground Rents Act. New flats are always more popular than second hand. Esp w the overseas buyers who make up bulk of market in my area. Now those new flats have the added advantage of no ground rent while my ground rent escalates. I’m way worse off
8/I’m aware my parallel is going to seem tasteless and offensive when I compare our situation to the tragedy of slavery. I mean only that abolition involved difficult compensation of “property rights”. (How appalling that sounds now!)
8/It will sound outrageous that our landlords were compensated for the loss of the power to gouge in the future. But so be it. First Bill you need is Ground Rent Abolition Act. It needs a fixed formula to discount for time, inflation and interest.this is a simple maths problem.
9/For those who can’t afford the payment, create a government-backed fund that can loan them the money on a repayment plus interest basis. And limit the time for all leases Fifty years tops?
10/Then where you have a simple ownership structure for a building or estate, the transfer to Commonhold can be a relatively simple straightforward switch.
11/Where an estate is more complex, the solution may simply be to democratise management. No fault RTM controlled by the majority. But tripartite leases which are designed to protect developers against warranty claims have to be amended.
12/One Bill for abolition of Ground Rent. One Bill for universal right to manage. One Bill for the abolition with immediate effect of any new leasehold and the ability of leaseholders to buy out any residual value in a building or estate post GR abolition at auditors fair value
13/New estates would be Commonhold with leaseholders owning shares based on their holding in the property. These would fall under company law, not the mess that is landlord and tenant law.
14/You’d probably need right of forced sale by annually appointed Commonhold management board to deal w non payers of service charge. Balance to go to lender/shareholder after settlement of debt.
15/To sum up abolish all ground rent via settlement w existing freeholders. Democratise management of all buildings no matter what the legal structure so that those who pay also control. Convert as many as possible to Commonhold. Once management democratised..,
16/And with ground rent gone there will be no point to third party ownership and it will wither and die everywhere but National Trust, some charities and royal estate.
17/You can pick 100s of holes in this,I’m sure But I’m trying to be constructive as u wanted. And the point is the same one I started with. You have to right an egregious wrong for the five million households already trapped in it. Because that’s THE BASIC JOB OF GOVERNMENT
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