… Conveyancing Association calls for enforcement of reasonable fees, and it wants Land Registry to register ‘lease administrators’ who handle sales
… It claims there is ‘an imbalance of bargaining power between the lease administrator and the leaseholder’
… 34 per cent of estate agents say leasehold sales are a ‘nightmare’
… LKP tells the Financial Times’ FTAdvisor publication that freeholders routinely stuff sales as a cash-raising tactic
… Leasehold transactions across all UK regions have risen to 260,000 in 2015 up from 220,000 in 2011 (Source: Land Registry)
… Today 57% of all transactions in Greater London and 40% in the North West are for leasehold properties
Sales of flats are routinely seen as an opportunity to squeeze ‘extortionate’ amounts of cash out of leaseholders by freeholders, says the Conveyancing Association.
Consumers are inadequately protected as lease administrators handling sales for freeholders are not required to be part of an ombudsman scheme or come under the jurisdiction of the First Tier Tribunal of the property chamber.