Katie Kendrick

The Competition And Markets Authority Investigation into the potential breaches of consumer protection law in the leasehold housing market closes TODAY 12th July 2019.

The CMA have confirmed that we should send ONE email to the most relevant email box (e.g Ground Rents) but state that your email is also relevant to other email boxes (e.g. Permission Fees) where this applies.
Basic Information will help them including:

  • Location (where your leasehold property is, including estate name)
  • Developer (where known)
  • Year of Purchase
  • Lease Terms (ground rent amount, frequency and rate of increase)
  • Who your freeholder is now
  • Who your management company is

SALES STAFF:

  • What information were you told by the sales staff, both verbally and/or written – Please attach documented evidence if you have it – or say if you can provide it if required.
  • Do you feel you had ALL of the information to make an informed decision?
  • What information were you given verbally and/or documented about the fact the property was leasehold?
  • Were terms such as “virtually freehold” used?

MIS-SELLING

Email Misselling.leasehold@cma.gov.uk

  • You were not given enough information on the terms of your contract
  • The information you were given was difficult to understand
  • Were you given all of the information in order to make and informed decision to proceed with the purchase?
  • Were you told a price (verbally and/or written) of how much you could purchase your freehold for by sales staff? Has this changed?

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PERMISSION FEES

Ever had to pay a ‘permission fee’ to make home improvements to your leasehold property? ?

Email : Permissionfees.leasehold@cma.gov.uk

The CMA are investigating if people are being treated fairly, and want to hear your experiences.

  • Were you aware of permission fees when you purchased the property?
  • Have the permission fees changed if your freehold has been sold on?
  • Has the freeholder tried to retain permission fees in the TP1 document?

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SERVICE CHARGES

The CMA want your views on service charges for things like:

? repairs to communal areas
? building insurance
?‍? building management

Email: Servicecharges.leasehold@cma.gov.uk

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GROUND RENTS

Do you pay ground rents charges to the owner of the land a property is built on?

Groundrents.leasehold@cma.gov.uk

  • Were you aware your ground rent increases?
  • What is your current ground rent? How does it increase? (RPI/Doubling)
  • Have you had issues re mortgaging due to ground rent terms?
  • Have you tried to sell your property but the ground rent has been an issue?
  • Any other issues with Ground rents please email
  • Did your ‘Report on Title’ you received from your solicitor clearly explain the ground rent terms and increases?

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The CMA are investigating potential mis-selling and unfair terms in the leasehold market.

It would also be helpful to CC in your MP to the email too.

Call for your views

If you wish to provide information to the CMA please use one or more of the following email addresses below:

In the heading of your email please indicate the address of the property about which you are getting in touch with the CMA and any other relevant material such as, should you be contacting us to make a complaint, the person against whom you wish to complain.

In your email please provide as much detail as you are comfortable with including timescales and dates, values and frequency of payments etc.

We would appreciate initial responses by 12 July.

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