If you were in charge of ending the freehold/leasehold system, how would you do it?

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MLMSE@reddit

How about people decide whether they want a leasehold property -if they don't then all the leasehold properties will go unsold and the owners will have no choice but to sell them as freehold.

But no, people would rather buy a leasehold and then kick-off that they were allowed to buy a leasehold.

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sabitda@reddit (OP)

I don’t think anyone would “choose” to buy leasehold

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MLMSE@reddit

No one forces them to - so it is a choice. See a leasehold, walk away.

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OddSign2828@reddit

Leaseholds are typically cheaper because they’re leaseholds. In some cases people can’t afford freehold simply because they’re freeholds

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Exactly - they are cheaper. People want the benefits of buying a cheaper leasehold property (which are cheaper because everyone else is walking away when the word leasehold comes up), but then kick off and demand that the leasehold magically goes away.

I can't afford lot's of things. I don't have those things.

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OddSign2828@reddit

I don’t think the concept of “you can’t always have what you want” should apply to purchasing a house, and having to settle for a predatory ownership system

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MLMSE@reddit

You don't have to settle. You could buy a freehold. There are cheap freeholds out there. Might not be the kind of house you want, but they are there.

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OddSign2828@reddit

Or, as is the point of the post, leaseholds should be abolished to prevent house choice being restricted purely based on that. Seems we’ve come full circle

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MLMSE@reddit

Which means the people who saved money buying a cheaper lease suddenly get all the benefits of not having a lease. Everyone else pays for them. Not fair. My solution is the fair solution to the OP's post - if you don't like leasehold. don't buy leasehold. If everyone takes that decision they will stop offering leaseholds.

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Lynvor@reddit

Not sure but I'd set up an independent regulator specifically for service charges. All expenditure by the property management company must be fully trackable and auditable, available to view by the residents at any time.

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Belle_TainSummer@reddit

I'd embrace the chaos and just end it. As with anything with the rich and powerful, most of the predicted "problems" will turn out just to be angry screaming at loss of privilege and power, and not an actual problem, and the few problems which are problems we can fix along the way. Patch them as we go, and plan for a longer term legislative fix in the five-ten year medium term.

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handtoglandwombat@reddit

Same. There’s so many issues at the moment that we’d like to fix but we’re always fed the argument of “but it’ll cause chaos, and unintended consequences.” But in a world where we decide to actually try and fix things, guess what? We’ll be able to fix those things too. As it is we’re just stagnating.

The rich tell us that taxing the rich will cause capital flight? I say okay, that just creates more opportunity space for the rest of us.

If the Americans reform section 230 then the internet will become a minefield. Fine! Let’s explode all those mines and start over. It’s not like the internet is doing what it was supposed to anymore.

If we build houses it’ll start eating into people’s equity. Great! We shouldn’t have turned a human right into a speculative investment in the first place.

Let’s just fucking attempt something instead of sitting around twiddling our thumbs ffs.

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bars_and_plates@reddit

For leasehold houses I would just give the leaseholder the freehold of the area of land.

For leasehold flats I don't think "ending the system" is possible. I think that fundamentally the idea of "owning" a box that floats in the air and is dependent on the infrastructure above/below it being maintained by someone else just doesn't work.

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Ok_Shirt983@reddit

There are plenty of flats about that are share of freehold instead of leasehold.

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yurtal30@reddit

Nice try Kier

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sabitda@reddit (OP)

Please help I don’t know what to do

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bluejackmovedagain@reddit

One of the big things the government is supposed to be doing is regulating management companies outside of leasehold rules. We live on a fairly large site with a mix of houses and flats, and when we looked into buying our freehold we discovered that owning your freehold on a managed estate can put you in a really precarious position.

Linked to this is the issue that councils often don't adopt new build estates, so they end up leasehold by default as someone has to be responsible for communal maintenance. The council don't even take responsibility for our bin collections (which has pros and cons as we live in Birmingham). This also means people on unadopted estates get screwed over twice, because you don't get any discount on council tax for services you don't receive.

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

On an arbitrary date I would let every family live in the house they’re in that night. Forevermore.

This will leave plenty spare buildings to house the homeless. With even more left over to turn into art galleries and discotheques.

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Crunchie64@reddit

Do we get advance warning, or told when we wake up that last night was it?

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

Nope, if you're on holiday abroad you're now just homeless.

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

Ok. There’s a slight loophole. You (and your family) can keep your family home if you’re on holiday. How’s that sound?

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

Ok. It'll be interesting to see what happens to birth rates when people living in Uni accommodation and tiny rooms in shared houses hit their 30s.

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

I don’t think you need my social experiment to witness that type of chaos unfold.

Just follow what’s happening today with the hording of assets and see how that plays out.

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

You're only likely to make it worse by freezing young people in crappy accommodation before they get to childbearing age.

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

You speak of students in terms of ‘future breeders’. I’m not sure many people who live in shared house would particularly like that.

How about after a period of time we relax where people can live. Then everyone who was previously renting a shared house now owns part of that property. I think that’d be a fair compromise.

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

You speak of students in terms of ‘future breeders’.

I literally didn't say that.

How about after a period of time we relax where people can live.

Then basically it's a one-off distribution of wealth?

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

A redistribution of wealth but with game-show characteristics

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

I think you could make it much more fun as a game show, and raise a fortune in advertising/licensing to boot.

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

Here’s the fun part. ZERO advance notice.

However, this will mean that people who own multiple properties cannot game the system. They only get to keep one of them, whichever they’re in on the date of my choosing.

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

Oh, there's another interesting question - how will you know where everyone was. If a couple own two houses and they say they were separated and one of them was in each, how would you know any different?

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

They’ve either filed for divorce or they haven’t.

They can keep one of their properties. If they are genuinely separating then they can split that single asset just like most couples who divorce do.

No special measures for people who own more than one property.

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

They’ve either filed for divorce or they haven’t.

Lots of splitting couples haven't. Including cases involving abuse.

If they are genuinely separating then they can split that single asset just like most couples who divorce do.

You mean live in it together, even if in an abusive (ex-)relationship? Because you said...

let every family live in the house they’re in that night. Forevermore.

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lanupijeko@reddit

Same night pass the order to drive on tye other side of the road.

Embrace the chaos

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sleepyprojectionist@reddit

As a single guy who lives in a shit studio in a rundown building out of necessity, I suppose it’s better than nothing.

The money saved on rent would go a long way, but I’d rather not be stuck here forever.

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WelcometotheZhongguo@reddit

Ok. Just for you, if there are any other empty properties in the same building, you can have those too. How’s that?

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JTC93@reddit

Most of the houses around me are leasehold. We pay £15 per year in ground rent and the Victorian company we pay it to do absolutely fuck all. The council looks after bins, manage the green spaces, road maintenance etc.

This company could be dissolved and no one would notice.

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

Well to be fair you're probably not going to get much for £15/yr anyway.

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JTC93@reddit

So why does the company exist?

There’s a fair few thousand houses paying yearly, and it costs a couple of grand to buy out of the lease so most houses just keep paying.

This company is just receiving free money.

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PracticeNo8733@reddit

Well, they're basically just receiving a return on their investment/asset (the freehold). Which isn't to say we shouldn't move away from residential leaseholds in most cases (I think we should) but it's not like they're charging you for a load of work and then not really doing it (which happens and is another problem).

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PetiteLittleQueen@reddit

make it simpler for everyone

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Crunchie64@reddit

Give everything back to the Crown?

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Belle_TainSummer@reddit

William the Conqueror has entered the chat!

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thesaharadesert@reddit

Via the Sussex coast and a fuckoad of boats, right?

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Jojo6167@reddit

🤣🤣🤣

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DECKTHEBALLZ@reddit

Scotland has managed it.. and Northern Ireland has a simplified version.

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Mental_Body_5496@reddit

Its complicated

Leaseholders already have the rights to form managwment companies - this needs simplifying and extending with govback insurance policies.

Share of freehold should become the norm.

Absentee landowners have 1 year to cone forward and claim land/property or it is put in a trust to be managed.

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REALQWERTY11309@reddit

All the new ones are peppercorn rent. Id propose anyone who wants to own the lease and make it freehold sends 1kg of pepper to the leaseholder.

Satisfies contract law that both parties have exchanged something (hence the reason for peppercorn rent in the first place).

It's so mildly anal and inconvenient that it could get past the house of lords. Perhaps it should be in pounds and Oz just to annoy people.

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Atomlad360@reddit

I would have the government buy ever lease at a fair market value.

I would then swap the financial assets backed by ground rents to once backed by government bonds.

I would then provide government funding to local councils to allow them to buy the roads and local amenities on new build developments than ground rents help cover - allowing the council to run them instead of the developer.

I would then fund legal support for blocks to transition from leasehold ownership to common hold ownership.

All of this assumes I have infinite money.

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david_leaves@reddit

Phase 1: find every land owner that's received more than X times* their original investment and simply take it from them immediately and give it to the home owners. Multiplier TBC. Maybe 2.

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