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Leaseholders' Rights Bill

As my hon. Friend knows, the tribunal system is obviously meant to provide people with a form of redress where they can make their own case, so it should not involve five QCs. One hopes that tribunal chairmen would be able to acknowledge points made by the individual taking the case and would not be intimidated by five QCs. I am not sure how the individual taking the case to the tribunal ended up paying the costs for five QCs. I am surprised to hear that, so perhaps my hon. Friend will write to me with further details. My recollection of the tribunal system is that the person opposing the individual can have legal representation while the individual does not, so I am not quite sure how the system led to costs being awarded in that way. There were complaints under the previous system that leaseholders were insufficiently protected from being coerced into paying sums claimed by landlords through the threat of forfeiture. Landlords would begin or threaten to commence repossession proceedings to recover disputed sums. In such circumstances, the leaseholder's mortgagee would often pay up to avoid losing the leaseholder's property, which formed the security for the loan. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 stopped such action being taken when service charge moneys were still in dispute. It also prevented forfeiture action from being used as a means of recovering relatively insignificant amounts of money—where service charges, administration charges and ground rent or a combination of those charges did not exceed £350 and where no part had been outstanding for more than three years. The 2002 Act also significantly improved the ability of most leaseholders to take over the management of the building containing their flats and introduced a no-fault right to manage. This gave leaseholders the right to take a greater stake in their homes: they could get together and take over the management of the building containing their flats. I should say that this is one particular area where the rights introduced in the 2002 Act distinguish between the public and private sector, because the right to manage is obviously not applicable to the public sector. I view that as an understandable exception within the legislation.