Before I start, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like, on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench, to wish you, your staff and all the staff of the House all the very best for Christmas and a very happy new year.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) on securing this important debate, and thank them for their work with the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold reform. I thank the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the House of Commons Library for the work they have done in supporting me and other Members in preparing for this debate.
The majority of people in this country aspire to own their own home, and for those lucky enough already to own a home or to be able to buy, a leasehold property often suits their needs better than a freehold house. Long leaseholders are in a landlord-tenant relationship with the freeholder. The rights and obligations of the two parties are governed by the terms of the lease agreement, which is supplemented by statutory provision. When it works, leasehold is fine—the hon. Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and for Worthing West spoke of their personal experiences—because there are transparent charges, well-itemised and properly justified service charges, appropriate resale values, and so on.
Homeowners want and deserve security and safety, but this debate shows that for far too many, their dreams of home ownership have turned into a nightmare. When one has worked hard to save up to buy a home, and budgeted to pay for servicing any loan and other costs that one reasonably expects, one should expect security and then to be able to plan for one’s future.
Probably all MPs represent leaseholders of one category or another. As we have heard, many MPs have examples from their casework of issues that have been brought to this debate. Too often,
“leasehold property sells buyers short at every step.”
Those are not my words; they were in an excellent article in a paper I do not usually read—the Daily Mail—in September 2015. Leaseholders are finding problems they had not expected when they bought their home. I think that “duped” was the word used by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). These are some of the examples that we have heard about: managing agents imposing arbitrary and multiple charges; lack of transparency of service charges that are way overpriced; estate owners such as
those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse having no right to a tribunal on charges; unexplained and unforeseen increases year on year—sadly, in my experience in Brentford, housing associations are sometimes among the worst culprits; and the cost of extending leases when they drop below the 70-year, or even 60-year, period. I was pleased to learn a bit more about hedonic regression from the hon. Member for Worthing West; I thank him for that.
We have heard about exorbitant charges for capital works on common parts, with little advice on how to pay. Too often, sadly, local authority landlords are some of the worst culprits in this regard.