William Clark

Today, @AngelaRayner put the fight for commonhold as "vested interests vs people being shafted." She's right. It's time to mandate commonhold, end leasehold creation for new builds, and give existing leaseholders conversion rights.

"The idea freeholders are the fairy godmothers and fathers when it comes to building safety. The truth is the opposite" @michaelgove @RFAssociation @AngelaRayner @CommonsHCLG @FloEshalomi @EOCS_Official @mtpennycook #LeaseholdersTogether

Double header cross party support for deep leasehold and commonhold reform from two former heads of MHCLG Strong calls for Gov to move faster on abolishing ground rent from the current 42 to 20 year off ramp and be bolder

Lord @MichaelGove, former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, told us that freeholders "have benefitted from a system whereby they get money for nothing", and he'd like to see an acceleration by Government to end ground rent.

Michael Gove says there is “institutional resistance” to leasehold reform inside the Treasury …

"We can not allow vested interests to win over the will of the people" "It's not a political point it's a wrong or a right ..... THIS IS WRONG" @AngelaRayner 👏👏 #LeaseholdScandal @CommonsHCLG @mhclg @mtpennycook @michaelgove

The worlds smallest violins were out today following the @RFAssociation awful performance 🎻🎻 @AngelaRayner @michaelgove spoke of "The institutional resistance of the treasury" @hmtreasury #LeaseholdScandal @CommonsHCLG @FloEshalomi @SteveReedMP

The idea that the government should not reform leasehold because ground rents are “existing legal contracts” is simply wrong. Parliament has intervened in private agreements many times where there is clear public interest. Contractual freedom in the UK has never been absolute - it operates within the framework of parliamentary sovereignty. Furthermore, we’ve seen the recent intervention in student loan terms, the ban on unfair tenant fees under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, energy price caps, mortgage regulation after 2008, and pandemic rent enforcement pauses. Even leasehold itself has been repeatedly reshaped through enfranchisement and extension rights. When contracts create systemic imbalance, successive governments have acted despite pre-existing contractual arrangements. Protecting homeowners from exploitative ground rents and eye-gouging service charges are not exactly radical ideas. A 40 year wait is far too long to fix this feudal mess 🤷🏾‍♂️ thetimes.com/article/87238a…

The remarkable evidence given by @michaelgove and @AngelaRayner at today's Housing, Communities, and Local Government Committee were simply sensational. You HAVE to watch it. We have got to have a form of capitalism that works for hardworking people who take on serious liabilities by way of mortgages. It should be absolutely unconscionable that people can buy a property, spend a lifetime paying the debt secured on the property, and they don't own the property outright. That we 'have been doing this for centuries' or 'it was part of the deal they signed' are not good enough reasons to continue it for another century. Governments should exist to support effort, self-sustenance, and aspiration - not punish them. Furthermore, the 40yr transition period is a complete joke and must be reversed to max. 20yrs, if not less. Lord Gove is spot on here. Watch the full session here 👇🏽 youtube.com/live/s_Qonb6uL…

Is this contemptible or contemptuous? bit.ly/4l4VKxb surely time to scrap this medieval fealty payment?

An incredible retraction on on the Daily Telegraph website today. They’ve apologised for publishing an article headlined “We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t afford to go on five holidays.” Why? Because the family in question doesn’t actually seem to exist.

The business model is wealth extraction from whoever buys the property, and from their family when they die. A restricted pool of buyers guarantees the racket can go on for years. Another scandal made in Whitehall, just like shared ownership.

Goosebumps! People often ask, is Shakespeare still relevant? Here is a great example, from the Steven Colbert Show, in which Sir Ian McKellen delivers an extraordinary speech. Shakespeare’s words are timeless, urgent and important. #Shakespeare #ianmckellen #stevencolbert

This. We're paying 6k pa for a 1 bed flat valued at 250k-275k. That makes the flat unmortgageable. 'Transparency' on this rip-off won't make any difference. I wish @mtpennycook instructed officials to look at the scale of unmortgageability.

The Guardian rightly castigates the Labour government for its timidity in tackling the confiscatory legal structure which allows landowners to demand cash from flat occupiers. But it’s worse than that; Leasehold law is a drag on the entire UK economy! theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

This is infuriating nonsense. Either ground rents are needed to pay for fire safety (they aren't, and never were) or they're securitised and represent a big risk for pension funds (an argument debunked time and time again), yet somehow the RFA is trying to argue that ground rents are *both* at the same time, and therefore can't be regulated. This has to stop ... it's embarrassing now. Policymakers must tell these interests to "go with god, but go".

Freeholders of over a million leasehold flats threaten to stop fire safety work if govt presses ahead with ground rent cap bit.ly/3M1BdfV

Leaseholders in Bristol are being ripped off £250 ground rent cap is step forward but not enough And I'll be following up with the minister about appalling insurance premiums post cladding-scandal that are stopping some leaseholders moving But leaseholders also face... 🧵

The ongoing building safety/service charge, which has ruined the lives of millions, continues to be one of the great political scandals of our time. It remains astonishing how many young people and families continue to be left in limbo and face crippling costs. If this (largely) affected pensioners, we’d talk of little else.

Ground rent cap is good news (though peppercorn would be better straight away). Also welcome is promised abolition of new leasehold properties. Better still would be the outright abolition of leasehold altogether, a feudal anachronism virtually unique to England and Wales.