My Lords, I shall speak to the group of amendments in my name, so that we do not have to keep coming back on different items. I have been asked to put them all together. I will start with Amendment 81F because that is the most important of them all. That has come about because of the court decision recently in the Phillips and Goddard v Francis case that any amount of work to be done per flat worth more than £250 in a year would require consultation. If, for example, it was a block of 10 flats and you had spent £2,500, after that, for everything, even if it was for £1, £10, or whatever, you would have to implement a consultation process.
In their answers tonight, the Government have told us that the one thing that they want to avoid is lots more paper, cost, expense and consultation. That is exactly what the amendment is designed to achieve. The Public Bill Office has now gone online and worked out that the sum of £250 should in today’s prices be £330, so that is why there is a difference in the figures. We have gone through it carefully, and we think that certain things are particularly important or desperate, such as fire provisions, safety provisions and—one of which I have had personal experience—when the front door of a block of flats is damaged. What would happen if you had to wait for about two months to get consent for you to put on a new front door lock, although it was so urgent?
We do not wish to change the law at all. We wish to clarify the law as it is to make clear that the £250 is not an annual figure but a per item or per effective work figure. That amendment is straightforward and the Government should certainly consider it. I have heard
them tonight and 50 million other times say that they want to reduce costs, difficulties and expenses. This is the opportunity to do it. Otherwise, every tenant will be burdened with so many consultation documents that they will get to a point where they barely look at the really important, serious one because they say, “Oh, that’s another one from the agent and it is all out of my pocket”. Amendment 81F is really simple.
Amendment 81B concerns leasehold valuation tribunal costs. I tabled the amendment because when I asked about the cost of leasehold valuation tribunals, which, at the moment, are limited to £500 for any applicant, I found that the practice, which is quite wrong, has arisen where the landlord, head lessee, or whoever is at the next stage above the leaseholder, is bringing in more and more expensive legal brains against the ordinary applicant. The worst thing about that is that, win or lose, the amount paid for that extremely major legal defence is charged back to the residents in the leasehold flats as a management expense. That was never the way that leasehold valuation was envisaged. In 1996, I was very involved when we passed the legislation. Those things were specifically against what we wanted. We wanted it to be approachable for anyone at £500. I received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, from which I understand that later in the year it will be swallowed up into a major tribunals review and the figure of £500 will probably rise. However, that is different from where the unlimited cost is being charged back to the leaseholders. That is the reason for that amendment.
Amendment 81C concerns a redress scheme. As we pretty well won the redress scheme with the previous amendment, which has just been passed, I do not think it is so important any more. However, when we had a round-table meeting at the department of all the interested people, they all said, from the most extravagant people down to the most careful, that the one thing that could save time, trouble, expense and simplify life for everyone would be a redress scheme. Therefore, no matter what happens with the previous amendment, I am hoping that at Third Reading the Government might bring forward some wording on a simple redress scheme.
That takes me on to Amendment 81D and protection schemes for service charge money. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned that university students had a problem regarding their deposits and so on for the premises they were letting. I pay full tribute to the Labour Government who as a response to that introduced protection for tenancy deposits. Tenancy deposits are well-protected now. No longer can an avaricious landlord grab every penny of your deposit money. Even if you are just an ordinary individual, letting property without an agent or anything like that, you have to place the deposit in a secure government scheme, which is very good and desirable. However, why is the same amount of protection not given to people who pay service charges, which are probably very much larger amounts?
Amendment 81E concerns the redress scheme. If I am satisfied with how the previous amendment, which has just been passed, is interpreted, I will not bring it back at Third Reading. However, if I find there is something that really could be clearer or better, I might bring it back. I beg to move.