Does the UK have the greediest, most venal and least competent housebuilders in the world?
The Labour deputy leader Tom Watson joined the APPG on leasehold and commonhold reform yesterday, while the Communities Select Committee still has not called in the housebuilders.
Mr Watson, the MP for West Bromwich East, joined on the prompting of constituents.
It beings the APPG up to 150 members: 140 MPs and ten Lords. Listed below.
Meanwhile, the government is showing increasing seriousness over the issues of leasehold reform, coupled with exasperation at plc housebuilders as evidenced yesterday over planning, land banking and supply issues raised yesterday.
Gargantuan profits have been made through the government subsidy of Help To Buy, and the nation’s housebuilders have responded by shafting their customers with wealth-eroding leasehold terms and intricate “fleecehold” management charges on private estates (where the council hasn’t adopted roads, lighting and drains).
Theresa May referenced leasehold issues in a speech in East London yesterday: “With no regulation in property management, the door has been open to cowboy agents – with tenants, leaseholders, freeholders and honest agents all paying the price. That’s why we’re working with reputable property managers and their clients to clean up and regulate the sector.”
Full speech here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-making-housing-fairer-5-march
Communities Secretary Said Javid told the Commons yesterday: “We are cracking down on rogue landlords and the abuse of leaseholds … We have launched a new, more assertive national housing agency, Homes England. We have launched an independent review, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), into the gap between planning permissions granted and homes actually built.”
Justin Madders, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, said: “There are some laudable aims in the Secretary of State’s statement today, but I fear they will not succeed because we are still relying on the same cabal of developers who brought us the leasehold scandal and whose profits have gone up nearly 400% in the past five years.”
The housebuilders also awarded themselves princely remuneration for harvesting the housing crisis and a load of public money, with the £120 million bonus to Jeffrey Fairburn, CEO of Persimmon, the most outrageous example.
(After £45 million or so, Mr Fairburn has allocated the rest to charity … seemingly controlled by Mr Fairburn.)
The Sun attacks ‘fatcat’ housebuilders with inflated fortunes thanks to Help To Buy
Meanwhile, the Communities Select Committee, chaired by Clive Betts MP, has still not called in the housebuilders to address the leasehold scandal.
LKP has repeated urged it to call in Pete Redfern, CEO of Taylor Wimpey, to address the company’s “ground rent assistance scheme”.
This is an offer to turn doubling ground rent into ones linked to RPI.
It does not apply to anyone who bought a resale, and the RPI will be linked to the doubled ground rent if the ground rent has already soared.
Furthermore, Taylor Wimpey won’t say how many of its former customers are involved, which are the sites, and how many leases have toxic terms.
Other housebuilders need to do some explaining: such as Persimmon on why it is now selling out houses at Harrow View West as freehold rather than leasehold, and what is it going to do about its now disadvantaged former customers.
Persimmon sold leasehold houses for £50,000 more than same-size freehold houses at Harrow View West
In the planning debate yesterday, another testy APPG member, Andrew Selous, Conservative MP for South West Bedfordshire, said: “Houghton Regis North 1 is a 5,000-house development in my constituency for which all planning permissions have already been granted.
“My concern is that I am told that not a single person will collect keys on that large site until early 2020 because of the time it will take to put in electricity and other utilities. My constituents need those houses now. They cannot wait that long and they cannot wait for the Letwin review. What can the Government do to help to get those utilities in more quickly, so that we build the houses we desperately need?”
A good question. And another might be:
Does the UK have the greediest, most venal and least competent housebuilders in the world?
Current number of members 140 + 8 friends
Updates this month:
05/03/18 Tom Watson Deputy leader or the Labour Party and MP for West Bromwich East joined
Listed below are the members of the All Party Parliamentary Group looking into Leasehold and Commonhold reform in the new parliament. The list is updated as new members join and will be updated on this page throughout the parliament.
Any member of parliament in the Commons or Lords may join an APPG unless they hold a formal office in the government. The group has also created the informal category of “friend” of the APPG to allow members of the government to follow the group as part of their work in constituency matters. Current APPG “friends” are:
Robert Buckland MP for South Swindon and Solicitor General
MarK Field MP for Cities of London and Westminster Minister of State (FCO)
Nick Gibb MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and Minister of State for Education
Andrew Stephenson MP for Pendle and Assistant Government Whip
Mike Freer MP for Finchley and Golders Green and Assistant Government Whip
Nick Hurd MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner Minister of State (Home Office)
Alistair Bury MP North East Bedford Minister of State (FCO)
Olicer Dowden MP for Hertsmere Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Members of parliament wishing to join the APPG can either write to us at appg@leaseholdknowledge.com or contact any of the co chairs Sir Peter Bottomley MP, Jim Fitzpatrick MP and Sir Edward Davey MP.
The APPG issued their first interim report at the end of the last parliament which can be read HERE
The aims of the All Party Parliamentary Group are updated as at 5th July 2017:
- To consider ways in which leasehold and commonhold legislation and regulation might be improved.
- To examine those elements of current legislation and regulation which are seen as defective.
- To look at ways to reduce the opportunities for exploitation and ways to alleviate the distress and hardship faced by some leaseholders, particularly the more vulnerable and elderly leaseholder.
- To consider how the current cost imbalance at the leasehold property Tribunal might be addressed, how the Tribunal might be developed for use under revised commonhold legislation and how it might return to parliament’s original intention as a low cost forum for disputes and redress.
- To consider and to make known objectionable and unacceptable behaviour in the sector.
- To consider those matters in leasehold insurance and service charge funds which currently fall outside the regulatory framework of the FCA.
- To consider the different issues faced in the private sector and in the social sectors
- To liaise with and monitor the actions of the various government departments dealing with leasehold and commonhold issues along with the activities of publicly funded bodies working in this area.
- To review commonhold legislation to explore how to better implement this form of tenure so it works as parliament intended.
LIST OF APPG MPs and LORDS
| Debbie | Abrahams MP | Oldham East and Saddleworth |
| Rushanara | Ali MP | Bethnal Green and Bow |
| Lucy | Allan MP | Telford |
| Mike | Amesbury MP | Weaver Vale |
| Fleur | Anderson MP | Putney |
| Tonia | Antoniazzi MP | Gower |
| Jon | Ashworth MP | Leicester South |
| Shaun | Baily MP | West Bromwich West |
| Siobhan | Baillie MP | Stroud |
| Apsana | Begum MP | Poplar and Limehouse |
| Hillary | Benn MP | Leeds Central |
| Bob | Blackman MP | Harrow East |
| Sir Peter | Bottomley MP | Worthing West |
| Graham | Brady MP | Altrincham and Sale West |
| Deidre | Brock MP | Edinburgh North and Leith |
| Lyn | Brown MP | West Ham |
| Nick | Brown MP | Newcastle upon Tyne East |
| Anthony | Browne MP | South Cambridgeshire |
| Fiona | Bruce MP | Congleton |
| Ian | Byrne MP | Liverpool, West Derby |
| Felicity | Buchan MP | Kensington |
| Conor | Burns MP | Bournemouth West |
| Ian | Byrne MP | Liverpool, West Derby |
| Ruth | Cadbury MP | Brentford and Isleworth |
| Alan | Campbell MP | Tynemouth |
| Dan | Carden MP | Liverpool, Walton |
| Andy | Carter MP | Warrington South |
| Alex | Chalk MP | Cheltenham |
| Bambos | Charalambous MP | Enfield Southgate |
| Chris | Clarkson MP | Heywood & Middleton |
| Daisy | Cooper MP | St Albans |
| Rosie | Cooper MP | West Lancashire |
| Yvette | Cooper MP | Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, |
| Robert | Courts MP | Witney and West Oxfordshire |
| Neil | Coyle MP | Bermondsey and Old Southwark |
| John | Cryer MP | Leyton and Wanstead |
| Sir Edward | Davey MP | Kingston and Surbiton |
| Geraint | Davies MP | Swansea West |
| Marsha | De Cordova MP | Battersea |
| Tan | Dhesi MP | Slough |
| Steve | Double MP | St Austell and Newquay |
| Stephen | Doughty MP | Cardiff South and Penarth |
| Rosie | Duffield MP | Cantebury |
| Iain | Duncan Smith MP | Canterbury |
| Julie | Elliot MP | Sunderland Central |
| Chris | Elmore MP | Ogmore |
| Florence | Eshalomi MP | Vauxhall |
| Bill | Esterson MP | Sefton Central |
| Nigel | Evans MP | Ribble Valley |
| Tim | Farron MP | Westmorland & Lonsdale |
| Colleen | Fletcher MP | Coventry North East |
| Marcus | Fysh MP | Yeovil |
| Barry | Gardiner MP | Brent North |
| Mark | Garnier MP | Wyre Forest |
| Nick | Gibb MP | Bognor Regis and Littlehampton |
| Mary | Glindon MP | North Tyneside |
| Helen | Grant MP | Maidstone and The Weald |
| Chris | Green MP | Bolton West |
| Kate | Green MP | Stretford and Urmston |
| James | Grundy MP | Leigh |
| Andrew | Gwynne MP | Denton and Reddish |
| Louise | Haigh MP | Sheffield, Heeley |
| Stephen | Hammond MP | Wimbledon |
| Emma | Hardy MP | Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle |
| Helen | Hayes MP | Dulwich and West Norwood |
| Sir John | Hayes MP | South Holland and The Deepings |
| John | Healey Mp | Wentworth and Dearne |
| Mike | Hill MP | Hartlepool |
| Meg | Hillier MP | Hackney South and Shoreditch |
| Dame Margaret | Hodge MP | Barking |
| Sharon | Hodgson MP | Washington and Sunderland West |
| Kevin | Hollinrake MP | Thirsk and Malton |
| George | Howarth MP | Knowsley |
| Lindsay | Hoyle MP | Chorley |
| Tom | Hunt MP | Ipswich |
| Dr Rupa | Huq MP | Ealing Central and Acton |
| Robert | Jenrick MP | Newark |
| Kevan | Jones MP | North Durham |
| Sarah | Jones MP | Croydon Central |
| Preet | Kaur Gill MP | Birmingham, Edgbaston |
| Daniel | Kawczynski MP | Shrewsbury and Atcham |
| Barbara | Keeley MP | Worsley and Eccles South |
| Afzal | Khan MP | Manchester, Gorton |
| Peter | Kyle MP | Hove and Portslade |
| Ben | Lake MP | Ceredigion |
| David | Lammy MP | Tottenham |
| Robert | Largan MP | High Peaks |
| Sir Edward | Leigh MP | Gainsborough |
| Tony | Lloyd MP | Rochdale |
| Rebecca | Long-Bailey MP | Salford and Eccles |
| Jonathan | Lord MP | Woking |
| Tim | Loughton MP | East Worthing and Shoreham |
| Justin | Madders MP | Ellesmere Port and Neston |
| Shabana | Mahmood MP | Ladywood |
| Seema | Malhotra MP | Feltham and Heston |
| Rachael | Maskell MP | York Central |
| Chris | Matheson MP | City of Chester |
| Steve | McCabe MP | Birmingham, Selly Oak |
| John | McDonnell MP | Hayes and Harlington |
| Conor | McGinn MP | St Helens North |
| Alison | McGovern MP | Wirral South |
| Catherine | McKinnell MP | Newcastle upon Tyne North |
| Anna | McMorrin MP | Cardiff North |
| Stephen | McPartland MP | Stevenage |
| Ian | Mearns MP | Gateshead |
| Mark | Menzies MP | Fylde |
| Johnny | Mercer MP | Plymouth, Moor View |
| Huw | Merriman MP | Bexhill and Battle |
| Andrew | Mitchell MP | Sutton Coldfield |
| Layla | Moran MP | Oxford West |
| David | Morris MP | Morecambe and Lunesdale |
| Sir Bob | Neill MP | Bromley & Chislehurst |
| Charlotte | Nichols MP | Warrington North |
| Dr Matthew | Offord MP | Hendon |
| Sarah | Olney MP | Richmond and Kingston |
| Chi | Onwurah MP | Newcastle upon Tyne Central |
| Kate | Osamor MP | Edmonton |
| Matthew | Pennycook MP | Greenwich and Woolwich |
| Lucy | Powell MP | Manchester Central |
| Mark | Pritchard MP | The Wrekin |
| Will | Quince MP | Colchester |
| Yasmin | Qureshi MP | Bolton South East |
| Tom | Randall MP | Gedling |
| Angela | Rayner MP | Ashton-under-Lyne |
| Steve | Reed MP | Croydon North |
| Jonathan | Reynolds MP | Stalybridge and Hyde |
| Marie | Rimmer MP | St Helens South and Whiston |
| Laurence | Robertson MP | Tewkesbury |
| Mary | Robinson MP | Cheadle |
| Andrew | Rosindell MP | Romford |
| Lloyd | Russell-Moyle MP | Brighton, Kemptown |
| Andrew | Selous MP | South West Bedfordshire |
| Alec | Shelbrooke MP | Elmet and Rothwell |
| Tulip | Siddiq MP | Hampstead and Kilburn |
| Andy | Slaughter MP | Hammersmith |
| Cat | Smith MP | Lancaster and Fleetwood |
| Jeff | Smith MP | Manchester Withington |
| Dr Ben | Spencer MP | Runnymede and Weybridge |
| Keir | Starmer MP | Holborn and St Pancras |
| Gary | Streeter MP | South West Devon |
| Graham | Stringer MP | Blackley and Broughton |
| Mark | Tami MP | Alyn and Deeside |
| Alison | Thewliss MP | Glasgow Central |
| Derek | Thomas MP | St Ives |
| Gareth | Thomas MP | Harrow West |
| Nick | Thomas-Symonds MP | Torfaen |
| Stephen | Tomlinson MP | North Swindon |
| Justin | Twigg MP | Halton |
| Derek | Twigg MP | Halton |
| Liz | Twist MP | Blaydon |
| Christian | Wakeford MP | Bury South |
| Catherine | West MP | Hornsey & Wood Green |
| Matt | Western MP | Warwick & Leamington |
| Heather | Wheeler MP | South Derbyshire |
| Hywel | Williams MP | Arfon |
| William | Wragg MP | Hazel Grove |
| Daniel | Zeichner MP | Cambridge |
| Lord | Adonis | |
| Viscount | Astor | |
| Baroness | Bennett of Manor Castle | |
| Lord | Best | |
| Lord | Bourne of Aberystwyth | |
| Lord Bishop | St Albans | |
| Lord | Blencathra | |
| Lord | Campbell-Savours | |
| Baroness | Fox of Buckley | |
| Baroness | Gardner of Parkes | |
| Baroness | Golding | |
| Baroness | Grender | |
| Baroness | Hamwee | |
| Baroness | Hyter of Kentish Town | |
| Baroness | Jones of Moulsecoomb | |
| Earl | John Lytton | |
| Lord | Kennedy of Southwark | |
| Lord | Kerslake | |
| Baroness | McIntosh of Pickering | |
| Lord | O’Neill of Clackmannan | |
| Baroness | Pinnock | |
| Lord | Randall | |
| Lord | Thurlow | |
| Lord | Truscott | |
| Baroness | Warwick of Undercliffe | |
| Lord | Young of Cookham |
As with all APPG sites we are required to state: “This is not an official website [or feed] of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It has not been approved by either House or its committees. All-Party Parliamentary Groups are informal groups of Members of both Houses with a common interest in particular issues. The views expressed in these webpages are those of the group”.
Related posts:
APPG members list – current membership 183
APPG tells MPs: Ban ground rents. Introduce commonhold. Summons housebuilders to select committee. End rip-off ‘fleasehold’ permission fees on managed estates
Labour MP Helen Hayes ‘disappointed’ by Sajid Javid’s response on leasehold scandal
Select Committee Leasehold reform inquiry launches
10,500 leaseholders demand select committee hauls in housebuilders over rip-off ground rents
‘Fleecehold’ petition launched to stop housebuilders creating YET ANOTHER revenue stream from their customers
LKP: Does the UK have the greediest, most venal and least competent housebuilders in the world?
A: No. That privilege is reserved for England, with London and the Home Counties being especially and peculiarly attractive to international investors in our over-heated property market – although other areas of the UK are starting to catch on. Many will be gathering in Cannes next week for the annual MIPIM, the world’s leading property market bash for “four days of networking, learning and transaction”, not to mention the champagne supping and other ‘activities’. Post Weinstein and the President’s Club charity dinner, the organisers have warned this year’s attendees not to bring the event into disrepute.
Bet your bottom dollar that those attendees will include the names of managing agents and others whose names make headlines at LKP. They may even include the odd parliamentarian. My source told me that English councils send property managers to MIRIPM to strike deals that include selling off brownfield sites with the promise of light-touch planning intervention. He added that many of the developments one sees springing up around London, for example, will not provide low-cost accommodation for essential service-providers like nurses, or others. Most of it will be occupied by well-heeled tenants who can afford it.
That there are so many members of the group is simply fantastic.
It should not be forgotten that over 100 MP’s cannot join under Parliamentary rules(which makes the achievement even more remarkable)
May I ask as to the position of Scottish and Northern Ireland MP’s since their countries rid themselves of leasehold? Would they be allowed to join the group?
In the context of this parliamentary group on leasehold reform, it is equally remarkable that, in years gone by when individual leaseholders have approached their MP with regard, for example, to spurious additional charges in the form of a ‘licence’ fee and other regulatory abuse, the said MP has found it too difficult to intervene.
The property market here in England – notably London and Home Counties but growing across the UK as a result of commercial pressures – is grossly overheated.
Many of the problems including housing shortages and leasehold abuse results from an overheated property market. What solutions will the LKP parliamentary group come up with to deal with an overheated property market that proves to be such a magnet for foreign investors? Will they be looking to cool demand by discouraging foreign investors? I’d be surprised. Will they bash the builders who are paid by foreign investors to build homes beyond the pice reach of the nurses and other key workers? Will they bash councils for failing to issue planning permissions when the real problem isn’t one of planning permissions? More that cash-strapped councils are selling off development land to foreign investors.
As we saw from Mrs May’s speech, government blames the builders and the councils for a lack of affordable housing.
Then we have the matter of leasehold reform. Background: the CMA’s two-year study concluded as recently as 2016 that leasehold works well, on the whole. But for whom? Other work highlights the fact that since the introduction of the Commonhold & Leasehold Reform Act in 2002, there has been very little uptake. Why? Good question.
Certainly, it would help if government were to enact all the clauses of CLRA 2002, especially those that require managing agents to be more transparent and accountable to leaseholders. Foreign investors are a powerful lobby. So, too, are managing agents. If the parliamentary group were to restrain these two powerful lobbies they would, at a stroke, resolvemny of the problems associated with property ownership.
Commonhold, in principle, is great, Bringing this in, and indeed removing ground rents, for new sales only, will simply create a two tier market. Values for ‘old, tainted’ leasehold properties will fall, relatively. Four million leaseholders across the land – myself included – will be upset.
LKP: Does the UK have the greediest, most venal and least competent housebuilders in the world?
Capitalism is a system of enterprise which in it’s purest form has but one motive, profit. Corporate companies are where we find capitalism in it’s purest form. All of the big builders are corporate companies quoted on the Stock Exchange, their motive is profit by any and all means possible. The answer, therefore to the first question is YES. Least competent?, If their motive is profit and they achieve (vast) profits, surely they are not incompetent.
Building houses is incidental to the big house builders, in actual fact it is somewhat of a nuisance to them that they have to do so as a means of making money.
Excellent to see Tom Watson join the APPG on leasehold reform. Huge respect for this MP. Dedicated.
APPG dream team of ‘big hitters’ and getting bigger.
Well done Sebastian and Martin for LKP campaigning. ‘Cometh the moment’ and all that.
Well done Sebastian and Martin for getting to 140,
but there is still a long way to go for reaching support from 326 MPs to successful passing legislation in Parliament for leasehold reform.
I wonder if LKP can persuade the “party whips” from every party to join the APPG. ???
The problem is not simply
but systemic corruption in the UK property market involving the political party now criticizing the builders and a large number of professionals who aid and bet and profit from this state of affairs. To pretend otherwise is laughable.
Nothing less than systemic reform is needed. Abolition of leasehold and ending anonymous ownership of property. The UK is hub for dirty money and a playground for oligarchs while taxpayers are driven further and further out of their own capital and the inequality between it and the rest of the country widens further. The choice for the Conservatives is proper reform fast or even more drastic reform under the next non-Conservative govt.
It’s good to see that Unexplained Wealth Orders are finally being used to limit the money laundering in the UK property, but there is a very long way to go.
Excellent news! Keep them coming! Keep up the fight everyone!