NLC conveyancing report on BBC R4 You and Yours today

A report on the conveyancing of rip-off leasehold properties, often with doubling ground rents and a host of management fees, featured on the influential BBC R4 You and Yours programme today.

You and Yours – Book tax, Leasehold confusion, Sales of Insects for food – BBC Sounds

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Author of the report is National Leasehold Campaign co-founder Cath Williams, a university lecturer who bought a leasehold house in Ellesmere Port – the constituency of leasehold activist Justin Madders MP.

Beth Rudolph, of the Conveyancing Association, also featured in the programme.

But her stance on the leasehold scandal has changed: inviting sympathy for the conveyancing solicitors two years ago on the BBC Victoria Derbyshire Show to now expressing concern.

Developers have throughout the scandal tried to shift the blame on to the solicitors that they recommended for not spotting the leasehold traps that they introduced to the leases.

This codswallop needs to be called out firmly.

Sebastian O’Kelly, LKP director, told the Times last week:

“Any solicitor unwise enough to have made a fuss about these toxic leases would almost certainly have been removed from the panel,” he says.

“A recommended solicitor, whether from developer or estate agent, is one to avoid.

“Throughout the ground-rent scandal the recommended conveyancing solicitors have proved to be little more than the developers’ stooge.”