Right to Manage is a good thing!

glottalstop

Anyone who owns a leasehold flat is aware of the potential problems of exploitative freeholders and unreaonable property managers. You think you own your home, but you are only allowed to lease your box with the permission of the landlord who owns the ground - in return he charges you ground rent, and dictates how the property is managed and how much it costs in service charges.

These arrangements can go wrong, which is why Right To Manage legislation was introduced in 2002. It gave, by way of a simple majority vote without blame, the right of leaseholders to replace the manager imposed by the freeholder.

This is a very liberating and dare I say it Conservative principle - like the right to buy your own home, it frees you to take responsibility for yourself. It gives you choice where before you were being "taxed" without a say.

So a week after the Budget echoed the findings of the Competition and Markets Authority (that the happiest leaseholders were those who had taken management control of their own properties) why has Lord Ahmad felt it necessary to cast a negative on RTM?

RTM has been an overwhelming success. I've done it, and I know many others who have and are happier because of it. Service improvements can be introduced and costs can come down by 30%. The only downside has been the way in which some freeholders have resisted legitimate applications on spurious grounds, delaying the process - strong evidence that the freeholder was in some way gaining a benefit from the exisiting arrangement.

Really the government should be stamping out on that obstructive behaviour after all RTM is supposed to be a no fault simple exercise.

Then why is Lord Ahmad, a satellite minister in DCLG and a cog in the heart of the Conservative political machine, urging caution?