New rights for residential leaseholders in England and Wales, including the right for leaseholders to manage their flats, will become law in stages from July.
This follows yesterday’s grant of Royal Assent for the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, now to be known as the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.
Housing minister Sally Keeble said that the new Act was the result of support for a major overhaul of the leasehold system in England and Wales and gave leaseholders more rights over their homes.
She maintained that it would also provide leaseholders with a strong package of safeguards against forfeiture making this, in effect, a sanction of last resort against wilful non-payers.
The new Act will:
- introduce a new form of tenure, to be known as commonhold, which will provide an improved system for future ownership and management of blocks of flats ;
- give leaseholders of flats the right to manage their block, and widen their rights to seek the appointment of a new manager;
- make it easier to enfranchise and obtain longer leases, and enable leaseholders and other interested parties to vary their leases more easily;
- protect leaseholders against unreasonable administration charges and unreasonable charges for improvements;
- prevent landlords from forfeiting leases as a result of trivial debts, and require landlords to give written notice of ground rents before taking any action or imposing any penalties following late payment;
- require landlords to satisfy a court or tribunal that a lease has been breached before taking any action or imposing any penalties as a result of an alleged breach;
- prevent landlords from insisting that leaseholders of houses use a particular insurance company to insure the property;
- introduce new accounting requirements and a new right for leaseholders to withhold service charges where certain information is not provided.
The new Act will also make changes to the provisions governing leasehold valuation tribunals (LVTs), including an extension of their jurisdiction to provide leaseholders and landlords with increased access to a low-cost network of dedicated tribunals.
The tribunals currently form part of the Rent Assessment Panels, which with effect from 7 June 2002 will change their name to the Residential Property Tribunal Service (RPTS).
The provisions of the Act will be phased in from July.
PLS News 2/5/02
