Some two million homeowners do not actually own their property. For even if they have paid hundreds of thousands of pounds, as leaseholders, they technically occupy their homes as tenants. Repairs, maintenance and insurance are controlled by a separate freeholder, although leaseholders pick up the bills through your service charges.
Media campaigns in the mid 1990s unearthed widespread evidence of abuse, with landlords levying massive service charges for shoddy work, threatening leaseholders who refused to pay with eviction.
Successive governments have been forced to tighten rules to protect leaseholders. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, expected to be introduced in 2002, will give leaseholders the right to take control of the day-to-day running of their blocks without having to prove they have a bad landlord, as they do now. Buying the freehold (the only way to get rid of a bad landlord) will be simpler.
