Today, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has published a call for evidence on leaseholder and commonholder-owned buildings with building safety defects, which will help to inform future policy decisions.

During the passage of the Building Safety Act 2022, the former Housing Minister committed in Parliament to a consultation on enfranchised and commonhold buildings. As such, data collected through this call for evidence will form the basis of the consultation.

The call for evidence will be live for 12 weeks and will close on 14th November 2022.

Read the full story at https://www.lease-advice.org/news-item/call-for-evidence-on-leaseholder-and-commonholder-owned-buildings-with-building-safety-defects/

Find them at their website here https://www.lease-advice.org/topics/?topic=service-charges

The government has launched a public consultation on reforming the leasehold and commonhold system in England and Wales. The consultation follows the recommendations made by the Law Commission in three reports with proposed legislative changes for leasehold enfranchisement, the right to manage, and commonhold. In response, the Government has already announced changes to make the enfranchisement process simpler and cheaper, including 990-year lease extensions, and the creation of a Commonhold Council. The consultation includes proposed reforms that would give significant numbers of leaseholders the power to buy the freehold of their property or take over the management of their buildings.

Read the full story at https://www.lease-advice.org/news-item/government-launches-consultation-on-proposed-reforms-to-the-leasehold-and-commonhold-systems-in-england-and-wales/

On 7th September 2020, the Housing Ombudsman published ‘A new lease of life Spotlight on leasehold, shared ownership and new builds: complexity and complaint handling’. The report brings together insight from handling almost 2,000 complaints received from leaseholders and shared owners during the last two years. This includes more than 800 formal investigations of social landlords. Out of all the issues raised, the report highlights complaint handling itself being the area of most consistent concern where maladministration was found in 72% of cases. Within this, the key issues identified were difficulties getting through the complaints procedure, delays, and periods of inaction.

Read the full story at https://www.lease-advice.org/news-item/housing-ombudsman-publishes-spotlight-report-on-leasehold-shared-ownership-and-new-builds/

The Law Commission has today (21^st July) published three reports with an extensive series of proposed legislative changes for leasehold enfranchisement, the right to manage, and commonhold. The Commission was tasked by the Government to improve consumer choice and provide greater fairness and transparency for leaseholders. The recommendations made in these three reports compliment the ongoing work of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Welsh Government to reform leasehold ownership.

Read the full story at https://www.lease-advice.org/news-item/law-commission-issues-reports-making-recommendations-for-reform-for-enfranchisement-right-to-manage-and-commonhold/

The purpose of this guidance is to notify users of plans for handling Property Chamber cases during the Coronavirus Pandemic. This guidance represents our plans as they are currently being implemented and if there is any significant change we will seek to give an update. Users will appreciate however that we are operating in a challenging environment and prompt communication may not always be possible. Their implementation depends upon the co-operation of the parties and we would remind users of the requirement in the Property Chamber rules to assist the Tribunal in discharging the overriding objective to decide cases fairly and justly. The text of the overriding objective is included at the end of this document.

Read the full story at https://www.lease-advice.org/news-item/first-tier-tribunal-property-chamber-guidance-for-users-during-covid-19-pandemic/