In a last laugh at her own failing housing brief Angela Rayner’s new Hove flat is a freehold. No faith in those leasehold reforms then…
Land Registry documents confirm the flat comes with a share of the freehold managed by a Resident Management Company and distributed to flat owners. Rayner bought it in May and just weeks later told the Housing Select Committee that pushing ahead with leasehold reform is “fraught with legality” and added: “Don’t act in haste and then repent at leisure – you’ll only cause more problems.” On the day Parliament broke for summer recess, the government quietly confirmed that reforms to make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to buy their freeholds – part of a package pushed through by Gove in the last government – have been kicked into the long grass, pending a judicial review by the pro-leasehold blob under the ECHR, which could drag on for years. Rayner insulated herself from that one – provided she can keep the flat…
Mrs Thatcher did say that “there is no prouder word in our history than ‘freeholder’.” Right to Buy and now this – Rayner proving herself a keen Thatcherite. In personal life if not in policy…