Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to tackle the issue of exploitative ground rent charges being levied on leaseholders of non-new build properties.

I am committed to tackling all forms of leasehold abuse and promoting fairness and transparency for the growing number of leaseholders. On 21 December 2017, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (formerly the Department for Communities and Local Government) published its response to the consultation on ‘Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market’. (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/tackling-unfair-practices-in-the-leasehold-market).

This set out a range of measures to crackdown on unfair leasehold practices, including introducing legislation to restrict ground rents for newly established long leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn (zero financial value). This will apply to new and non-new build properties.

A full impact assessment will be published ahead of legislation being brought forward.