Freeholders living off ‘rentier structure’ with ‘exorbitant’ ground rent, MPs say

MPs questioned freeholder groups in committee hearing over leasehold reform bill

MPs have laid into freeholders for creating a rentier structure" in England and Wales in recent years, charging exorbitant" ground rents of 8,000 a year in some cases, as a freeholder group pushed back against proposed changes to leasehold laws.

The government's long-awaited leasehold reform bill, which would make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to extend their lease and buy the freehold, and will ban leaseholds on newly built houses - but not flats - in England and Wales, is at the committee scrutiny stage.