Part of Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 10:30 am ar 30 Ionawr 2024.
Lee Rowley
Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
10:30,
30 Ionawr 2024
Currently, freehold homeowners on managed estates have very few protections relating to the cost of administration charges they may be liable to pay. This can leave homeowners paying excessively high administration charges that they are unable to challenge. We will address this issue and give homeowners greater protection. We intend to do that by mirroring the existing framework in place to protect leaseholders.
Clause 50 provides a definition of an administration charge. It is
“an amount payable…by an owner of a dwelling”.
That amount must be in connection with applications or approvals in connection with a relevant obligation, the provision of documents, the sale or transfer of land, a failure to make a payment by the owner, or a breach of a relevant obligation. Subsections (2) and (3) allow the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to amend the definition of an administration charge by regulations, which must be done using the affirmative procedure. I commend the clause to the Committee.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
