Leasehold

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:28 pm on 7 March 2018.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 3:28, 7 March 2018

I thank you very much for those questions. Just to clarify, the exceptional circumstances that were referred to in the statement are highlighted in the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. So, they include things like land owned by the National Trust, the Crown, a local authority or within a cathedral precinct, and also includes land of a special architectural or historical interest where it's important to safeguard the land and the surroundings. So, in practice, what this means is that any application that comes through, requesting one of those exemptions to buy or to build a leasehold property through Help to Buy, will have to be raised with the Welsh Government, and then we will seek clarification on whether or not those exceptional circumstances are legitimate in our view. We'll seek that from the local authority.

Any developer registering a site through Help to Buy—Wales will be required to submit a pre-development plan, and that will be required to identify the proposed tenure and any reasons for leasehold. Again, we would have those discussions as to whether or not they fell under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967.

The Help to Buy scheme is only a small part of the housing market in Wales—you're right—which is why I'm very pleased that, through our house builder engagement programme, we were able to secure that agreement from those five major house builders in Wales that they'd no longer market homes as leasehold, and that applies to Help to Buy, but also to other marketed homes as well, which are new builds. So, I very much welcome that commitment.

You also raised the issue of management companies. Again, this is something that I'm interested in pursuing. I very much look forward to the debate we'll be having next week, I understand, proposed by Hefin David, into the relationships and the rights of people who own their house as a freehold property but within an estate and are subject to many of the same charges through those management companies as people who have leasehold properties.