Kirk Williams

Born scouse with welsh blood, sometimes confused, often inebriated and always opinionated

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

Ended up going better than I feared, but was still a depressingly dire performance despite the flattering scoreline..... 🤷 #coys

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

Saints absolutely shocking again here, so many errors against a really poor side, and now looks like another second half of desperately hanging on...ffs 🤷🙄 #coys

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

@melb4886 @JAR072296531329 @orwellvalley Some mental gymnastics to try to separate profiteering by freeholders from the feudal leasehold system that enables it.....!!! 🤣🤣

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

@tomhfh Any positive benefits for first time buyers or downsizers will be severely constrained unless the government properly address the leasehold scam first.....

[Harry Scoffin @HarryScoffin]

Right-wingers rage about HRA/ECHR on borders.

But tend to ignore rent-seekers weaponising HRA/ECHR judicial review to block popular housing reforms.

[Harry Scoffin @HarryScoffin]

An outrageous and underreported story.

Regardless of political leanings, democracy should be respected: what people vote for in elections, and what Parliament passes, shouldn’t be trumped by vested interests playing games in the courts.

[Free Leaseholders @FreeLeasehlders]

We are calling out Starmer’s dud Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill in The New World 👇

[Free Leaseholders @FreeLeasehlders]

Leasehold is KILLING the flats market.

Even Zoopla can’t spin it away.

Homes rendered unmortgageable and unsellable by the leasehold mafia.

Yet the government has dropped promised Law Commission reforms that would give leaseholders rightful control over their service charges.

[Free Leaseholders @FreeLeasehlders]

“This is the last gasps of a failing Prime Minister.”

We speak to Ian Collins about Starmer and his aides cooking up a sham concession to leaseholders.

Labour promised to END leasehold, not keep the racket going until 2068.

The current Bill is unsafe and must be overhauled.

[Free Leaseholders @FreeLeasehlders]

We kept warning this government.

Prioritise your manifesto commitment to END leasehold.

Or let the market continue to collapse and make you look incompetent or in league with Big Freehold.

Starmer’s Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill is unsafe and must be overhauled.

[Liam Spender @LiamSpender]

The case for leasehold in this article is wrong and predicated on false premises.

1/ leases of new flats or houses are not sold at a “substantial discount” to reflect the fact that they are leasehold and carry ground rents.

The ground rent is neither legally nor commercially necessary. Ground rent as part of the price / consideration for the grant is not legally necessary because the leases are made by deed and require no consideration.

The ground rent is not a term of the lease any purchaser can negotiate. The same is true of many other terms in leases. It is common to see flats of identical configuration, if not next door to each other, sold for materially different premiums but with the same ground rent.

Indeed, in virtually all cases the developer will have agreed to sell the ground rent income before the first flat is built and cannot negotiate even if the flat buyer offers a higher premium for no ground rent.

Nor is it uncommon or unusual to see leases that prescribe the ground rent by factors that have nothing to do with the premium paid, for example by the number of bedrooms.

Further, when the Competition and Markets Authority investigated leasehold in 2015 it could find no evidence that new houses were sold for less than freehold houses. And where is the constant against which to compare flats because they are generally never sold as freehold?

2/ buying a leasehold flat or house is not the same as buying a sofa on instalments. If a sofa is bought on hire purchase then the buyer owns it outright at the end after making all payments. Not true for a leasehold flat or house, which goes back to the freeholder at the end of the term even after all payments are made. Indeed, modern leases also require the leaseholders to pay all the upkeep and for improvement of the building.

3/ a lease is not a right to occupy. That would be a rental tenancy. A long leasehold is an estate in land carrying the right of exclusive possession for the term. It is this right that makes it saleable and mortgageable.

4/ the myth that leaseholders are incapable of running estates or building places is to be contrasted by experience of right to manage and resident management companies, including at very large sites. Walk round New York or Paris or any other major city and you will see neighbourhoods full of communally owned and managed buildings. It is quintessentially feudal to say the British are too stupid to manage their own buildings without a third party freeholder.

5/ leasehold is not and has never been designed for multi occupancy blocks of flats. It was all that was available at the time large numbers of flats began to be built to ensure that positive covenants could be legally enforceable as owners changed and in multi-storey blocks. Other common law countries (Australia, Canada to name but two) saw the flaws in leasehold and developed a bespoke legal model. That is what Commonhold seeks to achieve for England.

6/ the fundamental flaw in leasehold, which cannot be fixed, is that it creates an adversarial relationship and a principal-agent problem between freeholders and leaseholders. The freeholder has all the power and no responsibility. More than 50 years of Parliament attempting to regulate service charges demonstrates this problem is inherent, a feature not a bug.

7/ as to freeholders’ property being expropriated without market value under the 2024 Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 this is wrong and the Divisional Court said so last October. We shall see if the Court of Appeal agrees.

In any event, the loss of the freeholders’ right to 50% of marriage value when leases below 80 years are extended is unjustifiable in market terms. The freeholder gives nothing in exchange, keeps his freehold interest and is compensated for the loss of ground rent. Ending marriage value stops freeholders extracting ransom from a lease extension or freehold purchase.

[GET A GRIP @docrussjackson]

Ffs. The widely mide claim that up to 50% of social housing is handed to foreign households while Brits wait is false disinformation.

Nationally in England, around 87-89% of new social housing allocations go to UK nationals, with non-UK nationals receiving about 11-13%, roughly in line with their population share.

In the existing social housing stock, UK-born or UK/Irish-headed households make up around 85-90%. The 48-50% figure often cited comes from London’s existing stock, where nearly half of household heads are foreign-born — but this simply reflects London’s overall ~49% foreign-born population. Most of those are long-term British citizens, not recent migrants, and allocations remain needs-based rather than nationality-based.

Recent London lettings are still over 80% to UK nationals. There is no evidence of systematic preference for foreigners over British citizens; the housing crisis stems primarily from chronic undersupply, not allocation bias.

The viral phrasing conflates foreign-born with non-citizens, new lettings with total stock, and London with the national picture.

So many gullible British people...

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

@jonathan_redman @jlrbartlett @DIYstevie @SaulStaniforth That doesn't make it earned. Average NICs, even if they were ring fenced, would not cover cost of state pension. State pension qualifying years also achievable w/out paying NICs. Legally and practically a contributory benefit, issue people have is stigma attached to "benefits" 🤷

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

@Saints1890 @LPL_Airport Such a demoralising defeat that, pretty much our own doing, so many errors.... 🤷🙄 #coys

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

@Saints1890 Saints errors, errors, errors.....ffs....🤷🙄 #coys

[Kirk Williams @kirkdwilliams]

@Simi_2210_ Skin

[A***** @Ajuntament33]

@LeeAndersonMP_ I will share this again,

So we know what dog whistling is all about ...

[dave lawrence 🐟🐟🐠 @dave43law]

This needs posting everywhere

[Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 @reformexposed]

Bloke that was sacked at the 11th hour by the Tories because he sent dick pics to councillors.

Standing next to the woman who gets angry when she sees black people on TV.

Standing next to the bloke who posted a whole host of creepy misogyny, homophobia and hate on his deleted and suspended accounts.

Reform UK is a circus.

[Parody Nigel Farage @Parody_PM]

Good to see Ant Middlton campaigning for Rob Kenyon in Makerfield. Who better to help push the message that Reform is on the side of local businesses than someone who lives in Dubai and is banned as a company director for dodging £1m in tax?