Asked by: Andrew Cooper (Labour - Mid Cheshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing a licensing regime for short-term lets.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
While recognising the benefits that short-term lets can have for local economies, the Government appreciates that excessive concentrations in some areas of the country can impact on the availability and affordability of homes to buy and rent as well as having a detrimental impact on local services.
The Government is committed to the introduction of a short-term let registration scheme and to abolishing the furnished holiday lets tax regime to remove the tax incentive that short-term let owners have over long-term landlords. In addition, we are considering what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to better manage excessive concentrations of such properties.
Asked by: Andrew Cooper (Labour - Mid Cheshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of abolishing leaseholds for existing homeowners.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government will 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, including those designed to increase service charge transparency.
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.