Real estate agent and asset management expert Nick Millican explains about the UK´s current housing market. The UK’s competition watchdog, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has released over 500 leaseholders from what it considers “problematic leasehold issues”.
This comes in the wake of growing concern among leaseholders about their ground rents doubling from when their homes were first sold. Commercial real estate expert — Nick Millican — dives into the intricacies of this real estate nightmare that’s seen leaseholders clash with freeholders, requiring government intervention.
Thousands of individuals in the UK are trapped in leasehold contracts with rising ground rents that can double periodically, which the agentNick Millican says makes it difficult to remortgage or sell properties. These predatory leases also expose these households to forfeiture, as one Londoner discovered. Nicola Hawkins was taken to court by her freeholder for failing to pay her service charge, which rose from £600 to £5,500 in less than two years.
Real estate agent and management expert Nick Millican lauds the CMA’s decision to slash ground rent to where it was when the leaseholders acquired the properties (Marketoracle).
He says that while the government will likely meet intense criticism from the British Property Federation (BPF) and the Residential Freehold Association (RFA), it shouldn’t cave. The expert Nick Millican finally notes the necessity for statutory intervention to protect UK consumers from unregulated ground rents.