The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill Explained 

Cheers mate

I've never voted Labour in my life, but as a leaseholder who has seen my cost increase 300% in less than 10 years of 'owning' my flat, I will be voting Labour on this single issue. 14 years of conservative government and they've done next to nothing on what is the biggest financial scandal in the UK since the GFC. Unless something drastic happens before the next election, why should we believe them now?

It is also widely used in Gibraltar

Also common in Australia. The most common leasehold landowners in the UK are the Royal Family to the best of my knowledge.

In Israël, everything is leasehold, just the people ignore it....

It’s not even like the property is cheaper either

Ground maintenance has replaced the lease hold on new builds, so the developer sells the contract to a linked company and hike the initial fee.

it is a hangover from medeival times. Leasehold houses arent actually that bad. My ground rent is the nominal sum of £1.37 for the next 400 years or so. its where properties have been built in the last few decades that developers and land owners have taken the piss.

@@aidy6000 I bought a leasehold property (and have subsequently bought out the lease for £7k) and the ground rent started at £30 per year in 2006. It had risen to £250 in 2022 when I bought the house.

In Canada and the US, they're called trailer parks. People own the trailers but rent the land underneath them. Sometimes they get services from the trailer park owner, sometimes services from the city. In theory you're supposed to be able to move the house and it makes rents affordable. But most residents can't move their trailers.

And the land of limp paychecks. Double whammy.

Student Loans works exactly like this

Recently flew home. £5 drop fee in place at Heathrow. Sad times. Awful mgmt across the country.

Just another stupid thing originated in england...

Isn’t that the whole point of a monarchy?

if i recall almost all Tory mps are landlords.

​@@kanedNunableExactly

Something will pass in the Commons, which will be labelled as "reform." It will almost certainly end up WORSE than what exists at present. It always does.

@@hooting-ton5215 Parliament isn't so much the problem, the house of lords is the biggest hurdle

Which there are yeah. The government would still be building the amount of houses they built before the housing crisis if there weren't

Not arguing they're a dumb idea but I can think of a few contenders for the dumbest ever. We're still enduring the process of implimenting Brexit. The monarchy is also an incredibly stupid idea that gets a free pass because it's been around a long time & English boomers in particular suffer what I'd describe as either a sort of inherent pathological deference or maybe something stockholm syndrome adjacent. We've also been privatising/selling off, publically owned natural monopolies in utilities, transport since the 80's. We followed that retarded cowboy fella into a ruinous illegal invasion of Iraq in the early 2000's. During the pandemic when mant people were struggling to afford basics our now prime minister thought it would be a good idea to give middle class people £10 each to help spread an infectious disease around.

English history. Check it out. 😅

@@AndriyValdensius-wi8gw thx for great recommendation mate :) if you want something mind blowing Google “progress” or “improvement”

Welcome to slave UK 😂😂😂😂 all the "bulls****" about the land of milk and honey 😂😂😂😂

Same here. It explains a lot, though. And totally on trend for a country that strives to limit social mobility and generally keep the plebs down in the mud.

Maybe but it won't be with support with their own party

Doesn’t matter, I think it’s all but confirmed that Labour will win the next general election at this point lol

Who would take the heat of holding it up?

The Tory's aren't even capable of pissing in a toilet, there's no way they'll get anything done. A brain-dead, quadriplegic person would probably be most effective in government than them...

If the tories say they're gonna do something actually good for common people, never expect them to follow through all the way, there's always a bloody catch. Ask why no-fault evictions still haven't been ended.

You can rent land and build on it almost anywhere. The UK law and established lease contracts seem exceptionally awful. Just making the leasehold law so that the landlord must pay fair market value as if they were freehold for the lessor’s buildings or units if they can’t agree on renewal can reduce a lot of abuse potential, as lessors can walk away without being financially ruined. The landlord can then decide if they want to buy out the lease or renew at terms the lessors can agree to.

These are pretty common in places that are more authoritarian. This is how things are in China as well.

Leaseholds are very common in Australia and NZ. I don't know where he got this "last 2 developed countries" line from.

Came here to say this but after watching the video, I believe it is pretty rare, or almost nonexistent, where the developer actually purchases the land, i.e freehold, and then sells the development as leasehold. In other words, the owner of the land is almost 100% of the time either an individual owner or the government, rather than a corporation like a developer (while selling it leasehold)

This all sounds a lot like trailer parks over here.

My first property was a ex council flat. Started off at £17 a month and went up to £56 over 4 years. Plus they always did extra charges at £500 a pot like fixing a wall on the other side off the estate which was no way near the land the flat was on. A typical year was around £2000 extra in charges but was often more. That was over 20 years ago so would hate to think what they are now.

They can't increase it any time they like, any increases must be set out in the leasehold.

'Love it' is said in 'irony' for any none British who don't speak the language of irony yet... It's the bane of our existence.

​@@chi3iYes they can. Freehold owners such as stand alone freehold new build houses. The ground fee is part of the covanant. There is usually a clause that allows the residents to fire the ground maintenance company if a certain percentage of residents agree. This is why housing associations are so popular to fight against increasing rates.

Same in Romania

You’re describing commonhold. We do the same in Greece and m, I’d wager, most of Europe. The UK just loves feudalism too much.

In Italy too.

Yes, this is what you call a share of freehold, that exists in different strutures in the UK, however the problem with a share of freehold is that when a dispute arises you either get opression of the tenant, or opression of the neighbours, there is no balance and if you seek to achieve balance all you are doing is escalating legal costs when disputes arise. The only problem with UK leaseholds is that some landlords charge over the odds for renewal, when renewal should be peppercorn. Abolishing leaseholds is dumb. reforming them is better.

@@Serfdomftw No. On a shared freehold,at least the way most countries do it, the decisions are democratic, taken only by the owners. No one external can make those decisions. And you own part of the land, you don't get into a mortgage just for the right to use land. That's immoral. And obviously, you only get charged for the services and maintenance you enjoy, it's not a random amount which mostly serves to make someone richer. You have the right to demand the status of the accounts and all the bills to check if you agree. You can't demand you landlord for those documents, or have a saying on a leasehold.

This was covered in the video, regarding leases coming to an end and you being at the mercy of the freeholder to renegotiate the leasehold

If you bought a property with less than 80 years on the lease you will obviously have been told by your solicitor the risks, if not you should sue them. If you bought it at a massive discount did you not wonder why?

No, they just say they want to tackle it. Nothing will actually change.

@@irisobobo Exactly! Wait until they atually do something. Talking about it is one thing.

Well it's only taken them what, 14 years?

Nah, it's just talks. Don't expect any decent laws passed that benefit you if you're a normal citizen.

They won't tackle it. It's all talk.

And Thacher

It's all traced back to magna Carter one way or another.

@@dariusalexandru9536 existed way before Thatcher mate, Magna Carter days, from a feudal system where Lords of the land (landlords) leased or allowed those who were poorer to work the land in exchange for living on the land.

It's 'ownership' as far as credit agencies are concerned, which is sometimes helpful. It'd be a scam if people wrongly thought they were getting a freehold, but it is made extremely clear at every step of the 'purchasing' process (at least it was in my case) what a leasehold is and what it is not.

Don't forget the tax avoidance clauses.

its less of a problem when the government does it because they're not motivated by profit

@@grimaffiliations3671they are to some extent because the land is won through bidding, but most of that land is for public housing

@@anonymousman9824 so it aint market housing

@@grimaffiliations3671 it is, for private 99 years land whoever bids the highest gets it

Maybe its different in Canada, but a condominium is different than a leasehold. Condo ownership works in one of two ways. In some places you own the unit you live in and an undivided partial interest in the common areas. In other places you own an undivided partial interest in everything with an exclusive right to possess your unit. The property manager just works for the owners. All decisons are made collectively by the unit owners, usually through an owners association.

It gets even worse with trailer parks. They've been jacking up their prices in Canada. My Great-aunt in her 90s needed rescuing. She'd been renting the land for 50 years. A few years ago a corporation bought the park and jacked up the prices 400% (during covid). Her adult kids figured she would be better off in a nursing home. We visited more than her kids did but now she's 5 hours drive away. Last photo shared online suddenly our tennis playing Great-aunt is using a walker and struggling. Her older sister, my grandmother lives with my mother and is in better shape. Their parents lived to 109 and 107. She should be in better state at 93based 9n her parents and siblings at this age. Nan climbed Grouse mountain in Vancouver with us last year. She would have been better off staying in her trailer.

Commonhold is not a form of ownership. You either have leasehold or freehold, and it has nothing to do with the "bricks and mortar", but the property as a whole as described in the lease agreement, registry and deeds. Please educate yourself.

This. Currently in Bristol on OpenRent there is a guy (Dave) and he owns 139 properties in Bristol, all of these properties are extremely expensive to rent and are very low quality. I was desperate for a place and I asked about one property and because I am a student I would need to pay 12 months rent up front (About £9k). Who can afford that?

I agree with this about the council tax being the landlords responsibility, but they will just back the rent up by the cost of the tax anyway to cover it.

"I think Landlords should be required to pay the council tax on THEIR property, not the tenant." That wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. You bid against your rivals for the tenancy based on the total you can afford. It doesn't matter whether the council tax is built into the rent or paid separately, you're paying it.

@@CCrohny My Flat mate and I lived in a property in Cambridge for a decade. I cleared up his shithole of a garden for free. We paid his ever increasing rent on time in full. We paid the bills on time in full. We looked after the property. And yet. All of a sudden, the millionaire landlord decided he wasn't going to extend our contract. He did exactly the same to the other four tenants. We had three months to find another place with two cats. We had got permission to have the cats because there was already a catflap in the back door. We were screwed. Then we had scams which wasted our time. We were lucky to find this tiny flat in the back of beyond, but it is costing us £950 a month rent plus £160 council tax, water, gas, electricity and internet as well as transport. 20 minutes cycle ride away. Neither of us drive, so we use the Guided Bus. There is a tiny Co-op who seem to think they can charge Waitrose prices always run out of stock. and close at 10pm. There is a tiny post office and shop on the OTHER SIDE of the village, that closes at 9pm. The last bus from Cambridge leaves at 10.30pm and arrives about 11pm. So concerts and plays are out of the question. All we have is a car park. We have one shelf of storage. My bathroom has no windows. Our half kitchen is in the living room. The landlords are lovely people. But then, when you are getting £950 for doing nothing, you would be too. And if they decided they weren't going continue the contract, We would have to pay to clean their flat, pay a massive deposit, pay for moving which last time cost us £2000 to move 12 miles, 9 years ago. Now, we simply couldn't afford to pay rent anywhere in the South East. Greedy landlords have priced us out entirely. It is absolutely preposterous.

@@NorthDownReader exactly this. It would be very complicated to ensure that the tenant is not paying anything towards council tax without overstepping a humanitarian line. Like ensuring landlords are only allowed to profit "£100" per month per property and the rent rate is set by the government strictly. Lol

The intent doesn’t matter if the consequences are horrendous

I’ve always found that ridiculous, we have a dispute on rubbish collection as we’re essentially paying twice in my building, as we apparently need a private one. It’s a joke

@DaveVespa Exactly. All the new developments in my area are constructed this way. It's insane to buy a freehold house, yet be subject to an additional maintenance charge for upkeeping block-paved access roads with private refuse collections etc. The amount quoted appears low at the time of purchase, as negotiated between the developer and a third party maintenance company. There is no restriction on the increased charges over time, nor an easy way to complain when open spaces are not maintained properly. Of course, councils love not having to adopt these developments as they save a fortune.

@@robertogarcia-cw4go I'm on a parish council. The Borough are building a small housing estate in our area. I'm pushing for us to apply to do the grass cutting side for a nominal £1 a year. We have to charge something, and it's what we would have been doing if it was adopted land.

4 in one day or one pound every quarter?

@@sbIvanov£4.00 divided by 365 obviously

@sbIvanov ngl idk but both my grandparents pay 4 ones owned by the Duke of Norfolk and ones a different Duke idk which one

​@@sbIvanov"4 pounds *a year*"

The land my house was built was bought from the local Manorial lords in 1890 for 500 years, I pay £1.37PA. and I dont actually pay it, the sum is so small it costs the owners solictors more in letters than it does in rent!!! hahahahaha I beleive either the council or the decendents of the property developer own the land now.

It is a municipality !! It is nearly impossible to expropriate someone in a Dutch City, they do not want to have again the problem to wait 45 years to build a metro station in a suburb detained by one person residing outside the country who cannot be reached by any mean. On the Continent, you can expropriate a person who can be identified and who can be reached by courrier.

@@1964_AMU But that issue can happen in other cities too be it Eindhoven, Almere, etc

@@firstpostcommenter8078 I am afraid these Cities could imitate Amsterdam...

Yeah that's why you can't afford a house, leaseholds. So many fake posts on this.

​@@richardevans560literally anything but usury and left wing welfare inflating currency

​@@richardevans560I believe he is referring to greed

The governmentowns the Crown estates

theres a huge difference in the land being owned by the government vs private sector though...

This is actually a Chinese thing, land is owned by the local government and they implement a lease hold system to get funds as they get nothing from the CCP. This is done to give regions greater autonomy and in theory encourages innovation from local governments, sadly what it's actually led to is a widespread property bubble and an economic disaster.

But the Hong Kong government (before 97), never introduce forced eviction, they use buy back scheme (even today). The big 4 developer for Hong Kong are criminals anyway with very close ties to current government. Also, if forced eviction was a thing, Kowloon City would not have existed decades ago.

@@sebastianflynn1746 Before the handover to China in 1997, ALL lands in Hong Kong, with a handful (literally < 5) of exceptions, were on leasehold with owner being the British Hong Kong government The system has nothing to do with CCP, except that it incidentally aligned with CCP ideology.

@@muffinman4544 The UK government handed Hong Kong to a regime that doesn't believe in private land ownership in principle.

A homeowner that we recently tried to purchase from didn't even know about the legal implications of the rent charge on their property.The estate agents had no clue and thought we were unreasonable for pulling out of the sale. Had we continued with the sale we would have needed to fund for a variation to the deed,. This still gave no guarantees that we would not have problems down the line selling the house.

Is John Francis Kennedy Junior, on 12 % points of the popular vote, US wide, for the President Election? Is he the Irish-American version of "Uncle Scrooge"?

@@maikotter9945 What are you talking about?

​@@maikotter9945the '60s are over

​@@maikotter9945He's a mix of "90s Liberal Conspiracy Nut" (Modern Anti-Vaccine theories started there.) and old-school liberal Democrat "Tax the Rich/America is the Evil Empire". He's too left-wing on most things for most moderates to consider him and his Anti-Vax stance has made him persona not grata for Democrats. Also, that comment made no sense.

@kraze1982 Exactly what I was thinking.

Leasehold isn't homeownership You don't own it you are a tenant

@@katiejane13ukit is ok for flats. but homes no.

I really don't understand why this video thinks changing the leasehold system will help the housing crisis. It's a good thing to do and all, but it's got nothing to do with the housing crisis.

​@@disquietawe The housing crisis is caused by supply and demand - apologies for stating the obvious. The UK population has increased by 9 million in the last 29 years, mainly because of immigration.

It's just talks, don't hold your breath

Which is why it won't pass.

It just talk mate. They announce amd then never action. Stop falling for it.

Guys, Ik it probably won't pass, but the fact that they've used their 2 collective braincells to identify an issue people actually care about is an accomplishment for them It is like celebrating a 12yo finally being able to do addition

Can I just say this could have been done when the labour party was in power. Now the labour party still do not vote for this becoming law.

Come to scotland

Come to Scotland where we have the highest amount of crime, drug abuse, lowest literature rates, highest tax rates and a bunch of failing services just like England and Wales. It isn't better here.

England and Wales is the jurisdiction where the vast majority of people live so it's more newsworthy.

I wouldn't advise coming to the UK. Many of us wish we could get out of it but we can't. Very dangerous government that hates the people.

It was never working well. People just viewed it as normal

​@@potato_nugget But corporations made it worse.

It was abolished in Scotland

Was waiting for someone to point this out. The video says UK, then goes on to say England and Wales.

I'm in the same boat except very small 😂. It's around £150 a month and always goes up every year or 2. It's actually laughable reading the end of year document and seeing what they claim they pay for very rudimentary services

letting in a million people a year is a cause though. the uk only builds around 200,000/300,000 houses a year. a house usually takes 1 to 2 years to build. while letting in a person takes hours. every person needs at least a flat to live (even flat living is a luxury now in many areas of the uk, people are paying flat rates 20 years ago for rooms in shared accommodation). every newcomer that moves to the uk one day dreams of having a semi detached house on freehold. it is the British dream after all. that not happening with the immigration and house building system we got right now. the demand is too great for the supply which leads to high rents/ housing prices from landlords looking to exploit the situation.

if there are more people, just build more houses - simple

@@jaimiepotts7638you need tradesmen/ labourers for that. organise firms that supply heavy equipment like jcbs. more allocated space to build on that needs to be negotiated over by solicitors, council/government entities. you need to follow green laws and have support from the local community. this is not a quick fix situation my friend. i would support foreign tradesmen to come here to a degree (too many tradesmen might lead too much competition and a decrease in their wages) the real problem is that we have too many unskilled people coming over on student visas then leaving their courses to work in the gig economy/ cash in hand jobs. in the uk there is a lot of illegal subletting going on too which is adding to the housing crises and is mainly foreigners that live in those awful accommodations.

What do you mean? In Hong Kong all we have are leasesholds ...

We tried that in the 60's; it has generally been considered a mistake ever since.

"its a waste of legal time, as it cost us about extra £100 to deal with the documents when buying. " I know in my part of the country and for a lease just on the site (not the building) you have a right to 'buy out' the freehold for a price calculated as a sensible multiple of the ground rent. Too late for you as a buyer, but doing that might make your property a little bit more attractive to a buyer when it's time for you to sell.

@@NorthDownReader not a chance, its a flat, and the £100 was just for legal documentaion

@@sydneyfong Hong Kong government leases the land to developers. Not like the british system

conveniently leaves out this system being implemented by King Kamehameha in the early 1800's when he was the sole owner of all land in Hawaii, well before becoming an American state

Councils don't charge ground rents or service charges even when properties are sold. Greedy freeholders are a different thing. Rewatch the explanation you have clearly misunderstood the issue here.

@@janewayles499 Councils routinely charge service charges and oblige leaseholders in former council flats to pay pro-rata annual maintenance/repair costs. So do some research yourself before you squeak out drivel at me!.

Not where I live in Manchester

Yes, and telescreens should be installed in all rooms to ensure correct behaviour! How foolish you sound.

@@stephenclark9917Don’t pretend that landlords are benevolent or don’t spy on people.

@@stephenclark9917 Not a bad idea. Perversion seems to be out of control.

Doesn't matter if they build more housing since landlords will just buy most of them out and the rest will be inflated according to what landlords can afford, not what the regular person can afford.

And the freeholder is the Singaporean government, which is a _very_ different situation from the situation in the UK where the freeholders are private individuals.

@@talideon It is still a Leasehold

@@larskaminskidktechnically, yes. But it’s one that is controlled by a democratic government not parasitic landlords

Singapore has a semi-democratic government and it doesn't matter whether it's the state or private individuals who are freeholders. The UK government could provide better protection for leaseholders through legislation

@@allergy5634 Singapore has a semi-democratic government and it doesn't matter whether it's the state or private individuals who are freeholders. the UK government could provide better protection for leaseholders through legislation

Ireland still has leaseholds too. Not sure how much research they put into England and Wales being the "only" places still doing this.

@@han090 Those flats usually come with a share of the freehold though. So leaseholders have control of their buildings, costs and service providers.

Because it allows developers to extract rent.

because councils only care about numbers, not people

Those other three countries land is much cheaper because most of the previous occupants were killed a few hundred years ago. They have way more wide open space in all three. More appropriate to compare the UK to other smaller European countries.

Well, most of us are kind of more concerned with having a place to live not opening a mine or oil well. Some improvement over the current system would be a massive improvement for most cases.

Unless you expect a general market crash in the next few years, then waiting around will likely only increase costs, given the shortfall on available housing currently.

@@han090 shit yeah you're right. Damn man it's gone so expensive.