A coalition of small property investors, retirees and shared freeholders has launched to oppose government leasehold reforms.
A campaign called Justice for Property Rights says it wants to ensure leasehold reform “does not unfairly penalise ordinary people with lawful existing property interests.”
The group claims over 200 members and says the total is rising daily.
The group says it supports action to tackle genuinely unfair lease terms and backs efforts to make commonhold a workable alternative.
However, it warns that current proposals risk going further by retrospectively reducing or extinguishing rights attached to existing ground rent arrangements, without a clear commitment to what it calls “fair compensation.”
Justice for Property Rights argues that public debate has become overly focused on a small number of large estates and institutional investors.
It says this obscures the reality that many affected owners are private individuals with modest portfolios.
These include retirees who rely on ground rent income as part of their pension, families who have invested in small freehold interests over many years, and resident-controlled freehold companies responsible for managing their own buildings.
It also includes people who have invested in insurance backed pensions and savings products.
The group claims that ground rents have been relied upon by individuals for centuries as a secure and reliable asset because property rights in UK law have been indisputably the most robust in the world.
And it adds that ,ore recently institutions have recognised them as a safe and reliable haven to protect the interests of pensioners and investors.
A statement says: “This is not about defending bad practice. Where lease terms have been unfair, they should be fixed.
“Where commonhold can work, it should be supported. But reform must be proportionate.
“It should not retrospectively strip lawful income and asset value from thousands of ordinary people who invested in good faith, many of whom are not wealthy institutions, but small investors, pensioners and families.”
The campaign stresses that many existing ground rent arrangements involve modest annual sums and long-standing, stable structures.
In some cases, a majority of leaseholders themselves collectively own their freehold and rely on these arrangements to fund their own borrowings from the freehold purchase.
It warns that treating all existing arrangements as though they were abusive risks creating unintended consequences, including financial harm to individuals who have complied fully with the law as it stood at the time of their investment.
The statement goes on: “Justice for Property Rights is calling for a balanced and targeted approach to reform, including:
“Action to address genuinely unfair or exploitative lease terms
“A balanced approach to support the transition to commonhold
“Clear safeguards to protect existing lawful property rights
“Fair compensation where government policy changes materially affect those rights.”
This article is taken from Landlord Today