Some of the UK’s largest housebuilders have signed a government-backed pledge to stop leaseholders being caught up in skyrocketing ground rent arrangements.

Taylor Wimpey is among the 40 property developers and freeholders which have promised to do away with onerous “doubling clauses”, barely a year after it set aside £130m to help homebuyers affected by the leasehold scandal.

In the summer of 2017 the government said it would look into the leasehold situation, after homebuyers complained of being locked into such leases.