Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 24 May 2022.
Llywydd, I thank Hefin David for raising those points and for the persistence with which he has followed this issue during the previous Senedd term and into this one. He is right to say that unacceptable and unfair practices can be observed in parts of Wales, which are possible because of the unregulated nature of estate management companies and the charges that they can raise. There are two ways in which the Welsh Government will aim to tackle these issues. We are, indeed, continuing to work with the UK Government. We are told that legislation will be introduced later in the current Parliament in order to implement the Law Commission's recommendations on leasehold reform, and that will provide a parity of rights for freeholders, equivalent to those currently enjoyed by leaseholders, that will allow them the right to apply to a tribunal to challenge the fairness of estate charges or to appoint a new manager to manage the provision of services covered by estate rent charges. But, at the same time, we will also, in our own building safety legislation, which we intend to introduce later in this Senedd term, include estate management companies in the proposed registration and licensing scheme for residential property management companies, and that will help to eliminate some of the abuses of the current system to which Hefin David pointed.