200,000 more caught in the leasehold trap

THE scale of the leasehold scandal blighting families is even larger than feared, the Government’s own figures show.

A report from the Department for Communities and Local Government yesterday revealed 4.2million homes are leasehold – 200,000 more than the Government estimated in April.

The sale of newly-built homes with leases – which force buyers to pay a yearly ground rent to the freeholder – has been dubbed ‘the PPI of the housebuilding industry’.

It is feared that thousands of families are now trapped in homes they cannot sell because of clauses that see the ground rent double every decade.

DCLG said it was planning to tackle ‘abuses of leasehold’.