‘In seats like mine in Mid Beds, leasehold turns dream homes into nightmares’

Welcoming people into their new homes is one of the things I love most about getting out and knocking on doors across my constituency in Bedfordshire.

It’s uplifting to see their excitement, surrounded by open cardboard boxes and walls splotched with paint tester, as we chat about the best place to put the sofa.

But for far too many, their dream home has become a nightmare.

Leasehold leaves home-owners with sky-high costs

I’ve spoken to hundreds of residents battling on a new frontier of our failing housing system: what is now becoming known as ‘fleecehold’.

This refers to a growing number of homeowners who have the freehold for their new home, but are required to contribute to the upkeep costs of communal parts of their housing estate.

This leaves these new homeowners at the mercy of estates management companies, who’s maintenance work falls far short of their often sky-high costs.

Despite the costs, maintenance is often very poor

What do they get in return for their fee? More often than not it’s unkempt grass verges, graffiti unwashed, potholed roads and next to no communication when they do try and get in touch.

I’ve spoken to residents for years have had to put up with private roads in their estate that would rival a ‘Tough Mudder’ obstacle course, they have been so poorly maintained by the management company.

I’ve met homeowners who fear for their ability to sell, having uncovered the baffling complication of every single item of play equipment in a shared playground being listed on every property deed on the estate.

While in most places this would be looked after by their council and paid for by council tax, these new homeowners are having to pay more on top of that for a service they are not getting.

The government is taking action – but not going nearly far enough

The government’s freehold and leasehold bill, which returns this week, finally includes some much-needed action. I joined Labour and Conservative colleagues on last month’s bill committee in welcoming provisions that would enforce greater transparency and hand more rights to homeowners on these estates.

But MPs from all sides have made clear that these measures do not go far enough.

Even the government’s own watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, set out in its report on the issue last year that though the regulations of bill are welcome, they fail to tackle the fundamental cause of the issue at source.

It does have more regulation for managing agents and provisions for freeholders to take on management of common spaces themselves, but not what we really need: the adoption of public spaces on these new estates by local authorities done in a timely, transparent, and fair way.

Any future Labour government must take decisive action

I hope the government will commit to finally acting on this issue when the leasehold bill returns, but if they don’t any future Labour government must.

For too long we’ve allowed the dream of a new home to quickly become a bureaucratic and byzantine nightmare. It’s time to end fleecehold once and for all.