New-build leasehold scam still goes on – despite Government promise to ban arrangement last year
- Thousands of new-build houses are still being sold with leaseholds
- Government pledged to ban the arrangement a year ago as many of them under the Government’s own Help to Buy scheme
Scam continues: Thousands of new-build houses are still being sold with leaseholds
Thousands of new-build houses are still being sold with leaseholds, despite a Government pledge to ban the arrangement a year ago – many of them under the Government’s own Help to Buy scheme.
Last December, Housing Secretary James Brokenshire described the practice of developers selling on freeholds to third parties who then bumped up annual ground rents by as much as tenfold as ‘unscrupulous and unjustified’.
It leaves many homeowners unable to sell.
MoveIQ, run by TV property expert Phil Spencer, estimates eight buyers a day are using the Help to Buy scheme to purchase such new-build leasehold houses.
Nurse Katie Kendrick bought her leasehold house in Ellesmere Port for £200,000 through Help to Buy.
She was told the leasehold was worth £4,000 but her developer sold it to a third party who then quoted £13,500.