Select committee calls for new regulator ‘with teeth’

A cross-party committee of MPs has called on the government to introduce a new independent regulator for property managers.

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee said the government needs to “go further and faster” in its plans to give leaseholders greater control over their buildings.

florence eshalomi

Florence Eshalomi

The government’s draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill includes proposals to create a new legal framework for commonhold to provide full freehold ownership for flats and a “bespoke approach” to communal living without control by third-party landlords.

It will also cap ground rents at £250 a year, falling to a peppercorn rate after 40 years, and introduce a ban on the use of leasehold for new flats to ensure that in future commonhold is the “default tenure”.

However the committee to regulate the property management agent sector, which it has “for too long delivered appalling standards of service without consequence.”

It said: “The committee calls for the government to include provisions for an independent regulator with the teeth to sanction rogue agents with penalties, including the removal of their licence to operate.”

MPs also said ministers should accelerate the ground rent cap, so it comes into force by late 2027, and halve the proposed 40-year transitional period to zero ground rent to 20 years.

The committee also said government should provide clarity on the voting rights shared owners will have in commonhold associations and called for the Land Registry to modernise its systems.

Florence Eshalomi, chair of the HLC Committee, said: “Millions of leaseholders have been waiting for too long for successive governments to tackle the unfair leasehold system, cap ground rents, and put homeowners in control of the management of their buildings. The government’s draft bill takes a significant step towards delivering on these objectives but, in our report, we provide a blueprint for how the final bill can meet leaseholders’ expectations and live up to previous government pledges.”

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