A new lease of life: - CentreForum

A New Lease of Lifeproperty law was generally based on assumptions that propertyhad clear boundaries which could be marked on a map and so wasnot practical for flats. Instead they were sold for a fixed period undera leasehold agreement, leaving freeholders with residual control toenforce service charges.Initially the feudal power imbalance between landlords and tenantsremained - leaseholders were not able to extend their leases and hadvery little power to challenge service charges. Over decades, manyof the problems with the leasehold system have been highlightedby notorious freeholders and managing agents. The first of thesewas Peter Rachman, whose name became so synonymous with badlandlords in the 1950s and 60s that it entered the Oxford EnglishDictionary. 15 More recently Nicholas van Hoogstraten gainednotoriety for his management of properties on the south coastand in the 1990s the Evening Standard’s ‘Nightmare LandlordsCampaign’ focused on the CARLA vs Harold Bebbington case. 16There has recently been significant coverage of large freeholdersbeing forced by tribunals to repay unfair service charges to theirleaseholders. 17Residential leasehold law has been frequently updated in recentdecades, notably more than other areas of property law. 18 Leaseholdlegislation has often been something of a political football. The1967 Leasehold Reform Bill was introduced by Labour but opposedby the Conservative Party despite their support in principle forenfranchisement, and the 1993 Leasehold Reform Housing and UrbanDevelopment Bill was tabled by the Conservatives but opposed byLabour despite its claims to support extension of enfranchisement.The most significant Acts relating to leasehold tenure are:::The Leasehold Reform Act 1967::The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985::The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987::The Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban DevelopmentAct 199315 See, for example, Oxford English Dictionary 1996, p. 1,187: “Rachmanism:exploitation or intimidation of a tenant by an unscrupulous landlord. It is namedafter a London landlord, Peter Rachman (1919-62), whose practices becamenotorious in the early 1960s”.16 See House of Commons Housing Bill Debate, 30 April 1996. CARLA is theCampaign Against Residential Leasehold Abuse.17 For example: ‘Landlord pushes up leaseholders’ fees by trading with connectedfirms’, The Daily Telegraph, 03 December 2011.18 Commercial Property Law, for example, has relied largely on the Landlord andTenant Act 1954. D Greenish, ‘Commonhold: The dawning of a new age?’, p. 7.15