Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will list the organisations and businesses he has had discussions with on the use of open-ended ground rent arrangements on new build leasehold properties in the last six months.

The Secretary of State met Long Harbour and the Home Builders Federation and had discussions on the use of open-ended ground rent arrangements on new build leasehold properties. In addition, Alok Sharma, the previous Minister of State for Housing, met the Building Societies Association to have similar discussions.

The Government responded to the ‘Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market’ consultation on 21 December 2017, with proposals to improve transparency and fairness for leaseholders. These represent the first major reforms to leasehold law since 2002, and include plans to set new ground rents to a peppercorn, to ban the sale of leasehold houses, and grant freeholders new rights to challenge charges.