Angela Rayner urges Keir Starmer to pick fights with landlords

Reply to the comment left by Tim Peters at 25/03/2026 – 10:06
Every bad supplier will say ‘it’s in the contract you should have read it properly ‘

Generally there are good freeholders just like there are some good property mgt companies but leaseholders have very little power in the relationship. Freeholders and their mgt cos can charge exorbitant costs and take undisclosed commissions and have no real interest in keeping costs to leaseholders down as they cant easily be challenged. Ultimately leaseholders can form a RTM but in recent years there have been leases in new estates used by large builders where charges double every few years.

BBC News – Homeowners want end to ‘extortionate’ service fees
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0742k4dwwo

If as a tenant in a rental your rent doubled in 5 years you could move somewhere cheaper albeit with moving expenses. As a leaseholder the cost of selling and buying somewhere new is very much higher

The abuse of the freehold system should be rectified. Replacing the system altogether is only a good option if it will be better than the old.

I am a Director of two companies where leaseholders have share of freehold. The first is fine. Five out of six owners are Directors and we get along fine. We use a good management company and have been able to delay the external and internal decoration cycles, saving us money. Our service charges well below the local average, for relatively little work.

The other block was badly in need of major works (roof, sea wall etc) and a load of other items. Rendal and Rittner, a London based firm were expensive and not up to the task and the local firm who we replaced them with went under following major fraud. Our lift then flooded so we ended up self managing for a couple of years.

It was a big learning curve and a huge amount of work. And that was in a smallish block with 9 flats, no obstructive characters and services charges and S20 bills paid on time. A commonhold type arrangement with internal politics would be impossible. At least a freeholder is neutral, and has rules they need to follow.

Before doing anything Angela should take a sharp look at Government regulation. Fire Risk Assessments every year? FRA assessors are as idiosyncratic as EPC assessors. One say to exterd the fire alarm and emergency lighting inro the garage. Fair enough. A year later a different one tells us we should have a stay put policy and no fire alarm. If we do what we are told we would have a £10k bill every year. And even if it is the same assessor they need to inspect front doors every year. They comply, they haven’t been changed. Getting daytime access to each flat each year is a nightmare. As with rental property, money has to be spent on Government priorities, money which either comes from increases in service charges or out of the maintenance budget.

Angela Rayner’s rhetoric epitomises Labour’s Politics of Envy and do as I say, not as I do…..
Very unhelpful in building a working and valuable PRS.

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 12:17
If you sign a lease with a fixed ground rent of £250 that is not onerous. It’s the deal you signed. Yes it’s £10K over 40 years. You will pay over £100K in Council Tax over 40 years.
The Retail Prices Index has increased by 325% in the past 40 years. So £250 in 40 years’ time may be worth about £60 in today’s money.
Ground rents doubling every 25 years roughly maintain the value of money. It is the ground rents doubling every 15 or even every 10 years that are the big problem.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 16:39
Sorry, Ian, but it’s not the amount of ground rent which is onerous, it’s the lenders view that ground rents over £250 outside London and £1000 in London, and in excess of 0.1% of the property value are ‘onerous’ (in Nationwide’s own words), which means they won’t lend to leaseholders. They will have granted a mortgage on the same property, under the same legislation, say, 15 years ago, but have now changed their minds. That has killed the market for flats and is ruining leaseholders’ lives if that’s their home.

Personally, I signed a lease with £150 ground rent, which was ‘fraudulently’ changed to £250 in the document countersigned by the developer and sent to me in a huge batch of documents by my solicitor.

Reply to the comment left by Suicide Jockey at 25/03/2026 – 09:40
Yes, however the Red Angela can do a lot lot of damage before that.
She seems to have now two houses. And none is rented.

“… pro-landlord, pro-developer stance on the housing crisis”
A joke of the 21st Century.

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 25/03/2026 – 10:07
Another here today gone tomorrow chump, like most of Labour govt.

“London Renters Union spokesperson Jae Vail said ‘Labour is haemorrhaging support across the country over its pro-landlord stance'”

If this is pro landlord I would hate to see anti-landlord.

Labour preach fairness and moral high ground but practice something completely different.

The reality is if you increase regulation then costs increase and these costs will be passed onto tenants. My local council has introduced selective licencing. I told my tenants in advance that I would increase their rent as a DIRECT result and they should object to it’s introduction – which they did. The council ignored the “hard working tenants” and went ahead anyway.

The government makes nearly as much money out of my remaining rental properties as I do. Who’s getting the passive income? Certainly not me…..

The Freehold argument is probably valid but is conflating the argument against landlords.

Reply to the comment left by Suspicious Steve at 26/03/2026 – 07:49
I did the same. Let the tenants know the SL fees and that it would be paid for by a rent increase of X per month equivalent for the term of the 5 year licence. Letter ended for them to contact council directly if they felt this was unfair as the local councillor for the area voted fully in favour of it.

I will be doing the same when the cost of registering on the LL dbase is know in AND also the cost to register with the Ombudsman too…. The government is apparently acting for the benefit of tenants and on their behalf, but they failed to explain the bill lands on the tenants lap.

I’m hoping that every LL passes all these costs on….because all it does is put up the market rent rates overall….