English serf; created through medieval leasehold law in uk.
if I don't work to pay my freeholder and management company uncapped fees i will be made homeless😡
NEETS watch out!
A life of leasehold servitude awaits.
“Get a job” does not guarantee stability or social mobility.
You can end up trapped in negative equity or with a flat burdened by high service charges no one wants to buy.
Social mobility is locked off for young people.
"Average service charges have increased 43 per cent since 2020 for buildings with simple amenities such as lifts and cleaners, but developments with luxury perks, such as swimming pools and gyms, have seen their annual charges rise by 89 per cent"
This is for government to fix
@HarryScoffin Politicians are guilty as charged. The political establishment lives in plush country homes, too removed to genuinely care about the plight of leaseholders. They gave ammo to MAs to plunder further under cover of fire safety. Whole system is messed up. 40 year wait a joke.
Property developers being able to donate to politicians is leaving the public unable to trust whose interests Governments prioritise in the housing crisis.
I met with my constituent Elizabeth and @ACORNunion in support of @CHinchliffMP’s campaign to have this banned.
@martinboydlkp What a sad message! Nothing has talked down the leasehold market as the rapacious behaviour of freeholders and their managing agents. Buyers have wisened up. The leasehold market is due for an explosive correction. If the government won’t do anything, the market will!
Andy Burnham is refusing to abandon Labour's strategy of taxing productive people in order to pay benefits to others. His favourite tax hikes include:
Increasing the top rate of income tax
Introducing a tax on land (the garden tax)
A holiday tax
A new tax on death, supposedly to pay for social care.
Back in 2023 he argued that Labour should commit to higher taxes, saying: Labour “won’t be able not to raise the issue of tax”.
"Andy Burnham has launched a scathing attack on 'profiteering' water companies, demanding United Utilities cancel its final dividend payment to shareholders in August."
Now there's something we could all vote for, well done @AndyBurnhamGM
Tip of the hat sir. 👏👏👏
https://t.co/mdAjIqIpPi
London housebuilding has plummeted, in part due to lack of buyer confidence in the leasehold flat market and uncontrollable service charges, reports The Times.
There is a looming retirement crisis hidden within the leasehold system. Many people who believed they were securing a home for later life may instead find themselves trapped by rising service charges, insurance costs and major works bills. As pension incomes struggle to keep pace, increasing numbers could face impossible choices between basic living costs and keeping their home. Housing security means little if the ongoing charges become unaffordable. Many will discover that paying off the mortgage was only part of the affordability question.
The managing agent for the block where I am both a leaseholder and freeholder (enfranchised) just told us they would charge us extra if we didn’t use their in house insurance broker 😂
It’s like when an estate agent has a deal with a particular conveyancer and tries to funnel them business
Egregious
Leasehold reform is great but managing agents are going to be the next scandal !
@martinboydlkp What kind of comment is that Martin?
#leasehold should have been abolished decades ago like in most countries!
Leasehold tenure is not ownership in the eyes of the law!
Why defend something that penalise the many & favour a minuscule % of UK citizens?
Leasehold is toxic & abusive
Voting in the uk is an expensive charade. It only throws up a representative that is told what to do by the establishment that has bought Britain. Election day is a moment of hope that is immediately dashed when the new PM realises they have to do as they're told by the bankers
HOW BLAIR KILLED HOMEOWNERSHIP 🥀
Tony Blair has some serious cheek.
He helped create today’s housing crisis when he abandoned Labour’s 1995 promise to replace leasehold with commonhold.
By shelving the proposals in “An End to Feudalism”, drafted by Nick Raynsford and the late Frank Dobson and signed off by a fresh-faced Tony Blair as one of his first policy prospectuses, Blair’s Labour paved the way for today’s leasehold scandal.
Blair’s Labour screwed the people for the benefit of the property elites, keeping power in the hands of the few over the many.
Starmer’s Labour must atone for the 2002 Act betrayal.
Commonhold for the many, not just the new.
Use the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill to deliver the remaining Law Commission enfranchisement and Right to Manage recommendations promised in Labour’s 2024 manifesto and the July 2024 King’s Speech.
No more excuses. Be worthy of the Labour name.
Leasehold flats and sky-high service charges are draining Londoners and undermining the capital’s ability to attract and retain talent. YIMBYs foaming at the mouth about Berkeley Group being blocked in Peckham need to wake up to this industrial-scale scam. https://t.co/1ja7h3BpAg
Today we've renationalised the UK's largest train operator.
Passengers will see fewer last-minute cancellations, cleaner toilets and more services to Gatwick Airport.
We are building Great British Railways. 🇬🇧🚆
https://t.co/h6VOnqaPRf
From making fans pay to watch football matches previously broadcast for free to screwing railway passengers for every last penny and selling off dozens of reservoirs, 40 years of neoliberalism has been all about enriching the billionaire class at the expense of everybody else
What most people already understand, even without the economic terminology, is that firms like BlackRock operate less like investors and more like modern feudal landlords.
They buy essential infrastructure,water networks, ports, energy grids, data centres, and other public necessities, often using vast amounts of borrowed money and paying prices that ordinary market participants cannot match.
Once the acquisition is complete, the debt is pushed onto the acquired company itself.
The result is simple: the public pays.
Consumers repay that debt through higher water bills, rising energy prices, increased fees, and declining service quality.
The infrastructure becomes a cash-extraction machine.
Profits flow upward to shareholders and executives, while the financial burden flows downward to households.
When the model inevitably breaks down, the consequences are socialised. Communities are left with crumbling infrastructure, polluted rivers, and failing services.
Thames Water's £14 billion debt mountain and repeated sewage scandals are a stark example of what happens when financial engineering takes precedence over public stewardship.
The executives who loaded the company with debt have already collected their bonuses.
The investors have already taken their returns.
And when the system finally reaches breaking point, taxpayers are expected to pick up the bill.
Privatise the gains.
Socialise the losses.
That is the business model.