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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to support leaseholders who were negatively affected by ground rent clauses in property transactions prior to 2010.

The Government is committed to creating a more transparent housing system that works for everyone. We have brought forward legislation that sets ground rents on newly created leases to zero through the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which came into force on 30 June 2022.

We understand the difficulties some existing leaseholders face with high and escalating ground rents. This is why we asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to investigate potential mis-selling of homes and unfair terms in the leasehold sector.

The CMA have secured commitments benefiting over 20,000 leaseholders, including commitments to return doubling ground rent terms to original rates. These settlements will help to free thousands more leaseholders from unreasonable ground rent increases. The CMA continue to engage with a number of firms and we urge other developers to follow suit.