Leaseholders and Managing Agents

Debate between Tom Hunt and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner]

Indeed, Sir George. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) is no stranger to witty epithets, and his suggestion that we should stop polishing and start abolishing was absolutely right.

Before I turn to some egregious instances of service charges and call out by name some of the managing agents that have played fast and loose with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which provides that service charges must be “reasonable” and that services and works must be carried out to “a reasonable standard”, I wish to acknowledge some of the individuals who have championed the cause of leasehold reform over many years.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Does the hon. Member agree that part of the problem is that rogue agents and freeholders believe they can act with impunity, and that it is incumbent on us to ensure that the regulations are in place to hold them to account and penalise them when they behave in an immoral way? They include Block Management, an agent in Ipswich, and Railpen, which is a freeholder that has behaved in a gross fashion and let down in a most egregious way almost 100 of my constituents.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has managed to get those condemnations on the record. I am sure that his constituents will be most grateful, as I am, for his doing so. He is right. The trouble is that the law is there: it is the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which makes it clear that unreasonable charges should not be levied, and that services and works have to be done to “a reasonable standard”. It is all there in statute; the trouble is that it is not enforced and that the mechanism for enforcement has gone awry, as I will come on to.

I already paid tribute to the Father of the House, whose long-standing campaign on this issue is an inspiration to us all. He co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who has also done so much on this issue. Not with us at the moment is my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, who has done a huge amount over the years.

It is about not just those in this House; outside of the House there are many more. I pay special tribute to Charlotte Martin, who founded, with Nigel Wilkins, who is sadly no longer with us, the campaign against residential leaseholds, and who did so much, with Neil Mulcock, to usher in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.