A coalition of more than 200 small property investors, retirees, shared freeholders and long-term savers has launched Justice for Property Rights, a new campaign group calling on the government to ensure leasehold reform does not unfairly penalise ordinary people with lawful existing property interests.

 The group says it supports action to tackle genuinely unfair lease terms and backs efforts to make commonhold a workable alternative. However, it warns that current proposals risk going further by retrospectively reducing or extinguishing rights attached to existing ground rent arrangements, without a clear commitment to fair compensation.

Justice for Property Rights argues that public debate has become overly focused on a small number of large estates and institutional investors, obscuring the reality that many affected owners are private individuals with modest portfolios.

Secure and reliable assets

These include retirees who rely on ground rent income as part of their pension, families who have invested in small freehold interests over many years, and resident-controlled freehold companies responsible for managing their own buildings. It also includes people who have invested in insurance backed pensions and savings products.

Ground rents have been relied upon by individuals for centuries as a secure and reliable asset because property rights in UK law have been indisputably the most robust in the world. More recently institutions have recognised them as a safe and reliable haven to protect the interests of pensioners and investors. 

Several leading UK pension and insurance companies – such as M&G, Aviva and Rothesay Life – that are invested in ground rent portfolios have raised alarm through their industry bodies UK Finance and Association of British Insurers evidence submissions to the Housing Communities and Local Government Pre-legislative scrutiny committee.