Freeholders living off ‘rentier structure’ with ‘exorbitant’ ground rent, MPs say

MPs questioned freeholder groups in committee hearing over leasehold reform bill

MPs have laid into freeholders for creating a “rentier structure” in England and Wales in recent years, charging “exorbitant” ground rents of £8,000 a year in some cases, as a freeholder group pushed back against proposed leasehold reforms.

The government’s long-awaited leasehold reform bill, which will make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to extend their lease and buy the freehold, and will ban leaseholds on newly built houses – but not flats – in England and Wales, is at the committee scrutiny stage.