Leasehold Properties: Managing Agents

Lord Best Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thought the noble Viscount was going to go on further with that question; it was nice and quick. He is absolutely right; I get more letters about service charges, particularly at this time, than ever before. We believe very strongly that service charges need to be more transparent and communicated more effectively by freeholders, because there should be a clear route to challenging them, or to redress if things go wrong. We are working to make sure that we get further changes to leaseholder legislation to ensure that transparency.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, raised the regulation of managing agents of leaseholder properties. Does the Minister recall that the working group the Government set up looked at estate agents and letting agents as well, grouping them all together as property agents and requiring a regulator that covered all three sectors together? This makes a lot of sense because some people do all three jobs.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Lord is right, and I thank him for the work he has done on this. I assure him that we are still looking at his review. We are also working with National Trading Standards to improve particularly the disclosure of material information in property listings, and with estate agents to ensure that they are offering an appropriate service to consumers all the time. We will continue to work with the sector to make sure that it is behaving appropriately and ensuring that people who go to agents are treated with the respect that they deserve.