Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing an independent appeals service for drivers to challenge parking charges.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is determined to drive up standards in the private parking sector. The Private (Code of Practice) Act 2019 places a duty on the Government to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. We will announce our plans for the new Code in due course.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that private car park charges are reasonable.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is determined to drive up standards in the private parking sector. The Private (Code of Practice) Act 2019 places a duty on the Government to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. We will announce our plans for the new Code in due course.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of giving leaseholders more powers to establish their own management companies.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government intend to act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. These include measures that will make it easier for leaseholders to exercise their right to take over the management of their properties; enable the introduction of a new valuation scheme that leaseholders must follow to calculate how much they should pay to enfranchise, which includes the removal of the requirement for leaseholders to pay marriage value; and deliver reforms to drive up the transparency of service charges to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable. We will set out details in due course about the extensive programme of secondary legislation needed to bring the Act into force. An impact assessment for the Act, including on the removal of marriage value, was published in December 2023 and received a green rating from the independent Regulatory Policy Committee.
Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure. The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to tackle unreasonable service charges for leaseholders.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government intend to act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. These include measures that will make it easier for leaseholders to exercise their right to take over the management of their properties; enable the introduction of a new valuation scheme that leaseholders must follow to calculate how much they should pay to enfranchise, which includes the removal of the requirement for leaseholders to pay marriage value; and deliver reforms to drive up the transparency of service charges to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable. We will set out details in due course about the extensive programme of secondary legislation needed to bring the Act into force. An impact assessment for the Act, including on the removal of marriage value, was published in December 2023 and received a green rating from the independent Regulatory Policy Committee.
Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure. The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if her Department will take steps to replace the leasehold system with commonhold.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.
The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.