Ground Rents Income comments on lease rule changes – Ground Rents Income Fund has released a statement this morning saying that it notes the statement made yesterday by Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, regarding the leasehold system, the proposed future level of ground rents in England and the release of the Department for Communities and Local Government’s consultation responses and the subsequent Government response to the consultation- Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market.
Ground Rents Income says it welcomes the steps the Government intends to take to stamp out poor practice in the housebuilding industry concerning leasehold houses, to protect consumers in the home sale process and to improve standards and transparency in residential property management sector. The directors are wholly supportive of the Government’s Housing White Paper, ‘Fixing our broken housing market’, and say that they are aligned in their desire to promote fairness and transparency for consumers.
The company is committed to working with Government and the Law Commission to appropriately reform the industry and to support existing leaseholders. Ground Rents Income has advocated a formal industry code of practice be enacted into legislation, under existing powers of the Secretary of State, in order to drive standards and to regulate managing agents.
In light of these announcements and having regard for the best interests of Ground Rents Income’s leaseholders, the company will pause the rollout of its asset management programme in order to digest the statements from the last 24 hours. The directors remain committed to amending leases’ review terms from doubling, to the lesser of doubling or RPI, for those leaseholders affected.
The shares are off 1.7% this morning. Putting them on a discount of 12.3% to the last published NAV.
GRIO : Ground Rents Income comments on lease rule changes