Leasehold Reform

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 3:07 pm on 15 May 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:07, 15 May 2019

I can't tell him precisely when, because I don't have that information in front of me, but I know it's before the end of the summer term of the Assembly. If I have more specific information, then I will certainly let the Member know. It is a specific task of that task and finish group to look at those specific issues, and, actually, my colleague Ken Skates has also had a group looking at unadopted roads, and we've combined the two in order to make a joint statement on the overall effect, because it's not just a transport issue, as you rightly say; this is an estate management issue, it's an issue for housing developments coming forward, it's an issue about the way that we manage residential developments and so on. So, the taskforce is indeed looking at that, as we are well aware of the concerns of his residents and residents across Wales who find themselves with management fees when they thought they'd bought a freehold property and so on. So, I assure him it's very much front and centre of what we're looking at.

We are looking at a wider piece on leasehold reform as well. My predecessor in this portfolio, Rebecca Evans, established a specific sub-group to look at this and also secured an agreement from all of the major Help to Buy builders that they would not use Help to Buy to put leasehold properties on the market, and that's been very effective. But there are these other bits of the estate that we need to tie up in an appropriate fashion to ensure that people don't have a whole system of fees that they did not anticipate and that they have no control over going forward, and actually to ensure that the local authority has the ability to adopt and maintain those roads in the right fashion with the right kind of street marking and facilities and so on, and we don't have abrupt changes of a surface and all that sort of stuff as you go into the estate.