In an interview for today’s Sunday Times housing secretary Micheal Gove has finally accepted that faulty regulations were one of the contributory factors in the building safety crisis.
Michael Gove: We are to blame on Grenfell
Michael Gove raised his son and daughter minutes from Grenfell Tower. Five days after the fire that destroyed the west London high rise, he returned, walking around its blackened husk. The remains of some of the 72 people who were killed, 18 of them children, were still inside.
Rawdon Crozier, right, speaking at the LKP-organised meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on elasehold and commonhold reform in December. Left is Labour MP Justin Madders, APPG co-chair who is also a solicitor and patron of LKP
By Rawdon Crozier
Rawdon Crozier is a barrister and mediator at KBG Chambers, Plymouth. Thanks also to Ibraheem Dulmeer, Barrister, Door Tenant, KBG Chambers, Plymouth & Normanton Chambers, London
Sections 21 and 22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (LTA 1985) are among the remedies the LTA 1985 provides leaseholders in relation to service charges; specifically, they allow a leaseholder to obtain information about how service charges are calculated.
LKP is seeing a surge in council major works bills, particularly in London, coming through on the leaseholders’ Help Forms. These are wipe-out bills that will in many cases drive stuggling first-time buyers back into the rental market.
It was to avoid precisely this that the Coalition government under housing secretary Eric Pickles introduced Florrie’s Law in 2014, to cap council major works bills at £15,000 in London and £10,000 outside the capital.
