For many people, the issue of leasehold crystalised after the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire and the subsequent purgatory that hundreds of thousands of residents throughout the country found themselves living through as they waited to have their own buildings’ fire safety defects remediated. They are still waiting.
The problem is the whole imbalance of power between leaseholder and the freeholder. Leasehold tribunals were intended to be a cheap, a cheap, efficient way of resolving normal disputes between reasonable people within without enormous legal costs. But landlords have intimidated leaseholders by engaging vast array of lawyers and threatening the forfeiture and bankruptcy.
Below are Barry’s interventions and speeches in the House of Commons from 2023 back to 2020, all on the subject of leasehold.