Reforming leasehold is ‘populist’, declares Mick Platt, the day-to-day manager of Wallace Estates, in an article on the policy wonk Conservative Home website, before setting off down quite a familiar path to demonstrate that existing arrangements are just fine.
This prompts two reactions at LKP.
First, the populist bit. It comes as a great surprise to us, as to get meaningful reform from this government has been like pushing a boulder uphill: it’s nice to have the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which ends future ground rents, but it has taken 10 years.
Lord Greenhalgh smiling on June 30 for the liberation of leaseholders in a mass shift to commonhold. Photographs reproduced with special thanks to Anthony Palmer
By Harry Scoffin
For the first time a government housing minister has debunked the fiction of the freeholder lobby that commonhold equates to amateur self-management and deteriorating zombie blocks with lots of absentee owners.
Lord (Stephen) Greenhalgh, who has since left government after the end of the Johnson regime and the sacking of Housing Secretary Michael Gove, told the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform on June 30 that he has a commonhold flat in France and the system worked well.
