The issue of huge price rises in leasehold building insurance has become a massive problem in recent years following the tragic fire at Grenfell. Throughout most of the last five years the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has done nothing.
Finally, it has been required to produce a report by the now ex-Secretary of State Micheal Gove. Its report accepts there is a fundamental need for change. The report has some good points, but it is still far too weak in many areas and in some parts seems far too close to the finance industry’s interests.
It is rare for those involved in leasehold – the consumers and the supply side – ever to come together to discuss issues but a venue was provided today by the Westminster Legal Policy Forum.
It was precisely this sort of forum that the co-chair Susan Bright, professor of land law at Oxford University, called for at the end of the morning meeting: urging leaseholders, freeholder representatives, developers, officials and relevant legal experts to come together to thrash out what they can agree upon in reforming leasehold.
