Fury as rents rise again at leasehold scandal builder

SCANDAL-hit Taylor Wimpey was last night accused of breaking its promise to ride to the rescue of furious customers trapped in homes with soaring ground rents.

The builder has faced fierce criticism for selling homes south of the Border with punishing leasehold contracts that see rents double regularly.

The terms mean buyers who start paying just a few hundred pounds a year could end up being charged thousands, making their properties almost impossible to sell as a result. In April, Taylor Wimpey pledged to fix the mess and set aside £130m to pay for it. But furious homeowners told the Mail that their rents were going up anyway.

Lindsay Lloyd, 30, bought a three-bedroom semi-detached home from the developer in Cheshire eight years ago for £144,995.

Although Taylor Wimpey has written to her pledging to do something about her doubling ground rent, bosses say there is nothing they can do to stop it rising to £350 a year on July 1. This is because the builder must reach an agreement with the owner of the freehold owed the money, rather than the Lloyd family.

‘We won’t see a penny of Taylor Wimpey’s money. They’re paying the freeholder because they’re cutting the income stream,’ Mrs Lloyd said. ‘We still won’t own the freehold and our rent is still going up.’

As excited first-time buyers, she and 32year-old husband Chris, who have a fouryear-old son, were happy to use the law firm recommended by Taylor Wimpey.

She said that although it was made clear their ground rent would rise in a few years from £175 to £350, she had no idea that the bill would jump again the next decade, or the one after that. ‘We were aware it would double once,’ she said. ‘We weren’t aware of future rises, we didn’t know it would ever go above £350.

‘We were probably just young and naive – they told us they would put a park in and install streetlights and things, and we kind of believed that was what the ground rent was for.’

In 2013 the couple were offered a chance to buy the freehold from Taylor Wimpey for £2,625. But instead they decided to pay a 15pc equity loan the business gave them to use as a deposit when they first bought the house.

What the family didn’t realise – and what was not made clear in a letter from the developer seen by the Mail – was the freehold would be sold to investors if they failed to buy it. When the couple rang up to try to buy it again in March, they were astonished to discover another business had bought it.

The Lloyds had to spend £800 on legal fees just to find out what it would cost to buy. To their horror, because of the doubling ground rents, the price was £32,000.

Teacher Charlotte Squibbs, 32, bought a home in Haywood near Manchester with her 34-year-old husband Daniel in 2012. They paid £132,000 for the three-bedroom house and their ground rent is due to double to £590 in January.

‘We weren’t given a chance to buy the lease,’ she said. ‘It’s now owned by an investor, and my house sale has just fallen through because of the leasehold.’

A spokesman for Taylor Wimpey said: ‘These negotiations take time and details of any agreements have not been confirmed. However, we are determined that any agreement will address the issues raised around mortgage ability and saleability of these properties. We have set aside a significant provision to cover this cost and will also make a contribution to customers’ legal fees.’

In Scotland, leasehold was relatively rare and abolished anyway in 2004, when any remaining leaseholds converted to outright ownership.