Are Michael Gove’s promises to reform the “feudal” leasehold system in tatters? Is certainly looks like it.
In a bruising House of Lords debate on Wednesday over his flagship legislation, he was accused of “shoddy politics” after a series of U-turns, and failing to honour pledges in the Tories’s 2019 manifesto.
Nearly 50 Tory MPs are also on the warpath, accusing the housing secretary of failing to outlaw “fleecehold”, where developers sell new homes as freehold but force buyers to pay service charges of up to £400 a year.
Another racket that MPs and peers want banned is so-called “forfeiture”, under which people can be threatened with the loss of their home over non-payment of just small sums of money.
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It’s also emerged that the Treasury is attempting to force Mr Gove to abandon plans to reduce leasehold rents to a “peppercorn” rate to encourage landlords to sell the freehold to leaseholders.
Mr Gove’s bill does ban the sale of new leasehold houses, except in exceptional circumstances, but not the sale of new leasehold flats, which make up 70% of properties affected, it’s claimed.
In the Lords, Labour peers claimed so much had been removed from the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill by the minister that a Labour government would have to legislate on the issue.
But there was worse, much worse, from the Conservative benches, with wounding attacks on the beleaguered Mr Gove from leading allies of former prime minister Boris Johnson.
And to make the criticism even more painful – and personal – for Mr Gove, one of his Tory critics during the second…
