Yes, of course. There needs to be more transparency and a system of redress, as my hon. Friend says. There also need to be some rules of the game about the standard to which the estates are built in the first instance. The management companies charge residents an inflated annual fee—in exchange, apparently, for tending to grassy areas, shrubs and other facilities on the estate. That is on top of their council tax.
This is a scandal. There has clearly been mis-selling. The public perception of freehold is deliberately exploited by the property companies in their sales materials. Many homebuyers are not made aware of the arrangements for the management of open spaces until the completion of the sale. One of my constituents reported that the first they had heard of their management company, which was Greenbelt, was a threatening late payment letter. They had not received a bill, let alone a welcome pack.
There is no room in the glossy brochure for an outline of the legal arrangements, but there always seems to be plenty of space for images of parks, playgrounds and woodland areas, backed up by verbal assurances from the sales rep that they are planned for the estate. Those promises are then broken and the land is passed or sold on to the maintenance company.
For example, at DurhamGate, a large housing development in Spennymoor in my constituency, the plans promised a “green spine” running through the centre of the site. Several years in, and with the site still under construction, residents are being hit with a full-price fee of £120 a year. Another of my constituents reported receiving a maintenance bill for a parking area that did not exist. The fees charged to residents for the maintenance of their estates are high, rising, uncapped and completely unregulated.
In Bishop Auckland, the annual fee for each household is somewhere between £100 and £200 a year, depending on the site. At first that does not sound too onerous, but when we consider that 278 neighbours on the estate are also paying the fee, it is obviously a grossly excessive £30,000 just for mowing some grass. In other parts of the country, in line with higher house prices, fees can be up to £400 or £600; I have even heard of fees of £800 a year. There is no limit to price increases and residents frequently report an annual leap in the fee. As my hon. Friends have said, there is no transparency and little accountability.