Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-19
Topic: Housing
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing this statutory instrument. I appreciate that she was engaged on other government Bills when the legislation was going through earlier this year. As she explained, the context of this instrument are the clauses in the Building Safety Act which were introduced at a relatively late stage to protect leaseholders from remediation costs following the Grenfell tragedy. That protection was improved during the passage of the Bill, though not as far as some of us would have liked. However, it is good news that the secondary legislation is now being passed to give effect to it I have a number of issues to raise about this SI and will quite understand if my noble friend writes to me in response. First, looking at the schedule, there is a form headed "Evidence", and a leaseholder who believes that he has protection under the SI has to provide a number of documents. One is to show that the dwelling, which is usually a flat, is his or her only principal home on 14 February. Most people have only one home. I wonder what document they must provide to satisfy the landlord that they do not own any other property. Is it a simple assertion, or will the landlord be entitled to expect something else before he accepts liability, and, if so, what? It is quite hard to prove a negative. This is important, because if the landlord can say that the leaseholder has not completed the form properly, the lease is no longer a qualifying lease Secondly, during the passage of the Bill, on several occasions I raised the question of leaseholders who had enfranchised and then bought the freehold. I was invited to read the Minister’s lips. Other noble Lords in Committee will remember the exchange. I was assured that they would be treated as leaseholders and not as freeholders, and that they would get protection under the Bill. My noble friend Lord Greenhalgh said: "They are effectively leaseholders that have enfranchised as opposed to freeholders. I hope that helps."—[Official Report, 28/2/22; col. GC 262] That would have been consistent with the policy of successive Governments to encourage leaseholders to enfranchise, and it would be perverse to penalise those who had done so Without resurrecting old arguments, when the Bill completed its passage, they were treated as freeholders and not as leaseholders, and so they got no protection under Section 117 of the Act and no protection under the SI. My noble friend Lord Greenhalgh was concerned about this, and I ask my noble friend the Minister whether any action was being taken by the Government to fulfil the commitment that was initially given. I recall that my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh mentioned some consultation on this issue Thirdly, related to that, there will be problems where some of the leaseholders are freeholders and others are not. Can my noble friend the Minister say whether, under those circumstances, leaseholders who do not own a share of a freehold can pass on their share of the remediation bill to those who are freeholders? Again, that would be a perverse consequence. Do the Government intend to make regulations under Section 117(3)(d) to deal with any situation of some residents being freeholders and others not?