Principle Estate Management believes the government risks ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ if it presses on to replace leasehold with commonhold.
Managing Director, Brett Williams is urging the Prime Minister to step back and focus on improving outcomes for residents. It should not simply be about replacing one legal structure with another.
He believes No10’s attention should be on improving the system and regulating where necessary. Brett argues the government should remove bad practices and raise standards, rather than assuming a new tenure model will solve fundamentally human problems.
A move to change current systems
“I always say when discussing leasehold v commonhold that we do not ban cars because there are occasional accidents. Instead, we make them safer, improve the roads, strengthen enforcement and hold the bad actors accountable,” explained Brett. He is a Fellow of The Property Institute (TPI) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
“In my experience, the biggest problems are not created by leasehold itself. It is created by poor behaviour, poor governance and poor decision-making by a minority of people across every stakeholder group. This could be from managing agents, developers, freeholders, residents’ associations or residents themselves.
“Changing tenure alone will not eliminate these problems. It is unrealistic to believe commonhold will magically remove disputes, conflicts between neighbours or management challenges.”
He continued, “Properties in Scotland, currently under legislation similar to commonhold, are no better managed than in England and Wales. No ownership model is perfect because no system can remove the human element.”
Brett founded Principle Estate Management with long-term friend Joe Jobson in January 2018. In just eight years, they have created one of the UK’s fastest-growing firms in the sector.
The duo now employs 120 people across offices in Birmingham, Manchester, London and Fareham. They also manage more than 25,000 units across the UK.
Like many professionals in the property space, he remains unconvinced that the significant public and private costs associated with replacing leasehold with commonhold will deliver a corresponding improvement in resident satisfaction.
Better outcomes for tenants
“Lifts will still need maintenance, roofs will still need repairing, gardens will still need maintaining and insurance will still need arranging,” added Brett. “Disputes between neighbours will still arise and people will still behave like people. Challenges will continue to exist irrespective of the tenure eventually chosen.
“As both a professional and a taxpayer, I question whether the time, money and legislative effort required for wholesale tenure replacement could be better spent improving the existing system.”
He concluded, “Instead, I ask our new Prime Minister, our new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the reappointed Minister of State to enhance the status quo by improving regulation, best practice and outcomes for residents.”
