“The Residential Freehold Association and its members are dedicated to upholding best practice, driving forward professional standards in the residential property sector, and making the experience of living in apartment blocks enjoyable for residents.
While we have backed previous Government announcements such as plans to abolish the selling of new leasehold houses, the Government’s new rhetoric around abolishing the leasehold system in its entirety, is irresponsible and a dangerous overreaction to a small proportion of perceived problems which have either been addressed or simply do not exist.
Disrupting an established system that works well for the vast majority of the 4.9 million leaseholders up and down the country, based on no consultation will impose unwanted burdens and legal responsibilities on ordinary people living in apartments and pose a serious risk to the safety of residents and necessary maintenance of residential buildings, particularly those that are large and complex. Moreover the abolishment of leasehold will do nothing to reduce the cost of the management and maintenance of buildings nor resolve the building safety crisis – it will only make individual residents responsible for often significant and complicated remediation work.
There is no clear evidence to suggest that a majority of leaseholders want to assume the burdens and legal responsibilities associated with owning a commonhold property. To the contrary, research and polling conducted by Savanta in 2019 revealed that 75% of leaseholders feel negatively about the new obligations and responsibilities they’d need to assume.
We urge the Government not to be swayed by a vocal minority and instead embark on a wide-reaching national consultation to determine whether leaseholders are aware of the ramifications of removing their freedom of choice to utilise the services of a professional freeholder and protections available within the leasehold framework.
We stand ready to work with the Government to ensure that high standards are promoted and enforced quickly and effectively by way of self-regulation by the sector, and to continue to provide benefits of having a professional freeholder to residents.”