Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

59: Clause 14, page 24, line 28, at end insert—
“16GA Exemption for shared ownership leaseholders(1) Sections 16E and 16F do not apply to any relevant person who gives notice under Ground 1A in Schedule 2 if on the date such notice is given that person is a tenant under a shared ownership lease.(2) For the purposes of this section “shared ownership lease” has the same meaning as in section 13 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and “tenant” shall be construed accordingly.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to protect shared leaseholders whose sales fall through, as is common. The current drafting of clause 14 would leave the shared ownership leaseholder with an empty property if notice is given and the sale falls through.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, when I spoke to this amendment last Tuesday, I said I was minded to test the opinion of the House if the Government could neither accept the amendment nor give an assurance that shared owners letting flats in blocks affected by the cladding scandal could sell the flats back to the housing association they bought it from when a sale falls through to save them from the financial problems that will confront them with the proposed 12-month ban on re-letting. Although I was grateful to the Minister for the meeting she held with me, and for her sympathetic remarks at the end of that debate, and read with interest the letter that she sent me this morning, I am afraid that it falls well short of the assurances I was looking for, so I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.