The text of the bill has been agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It now waits for Royal Assent to be granted, at which point it will become an Act of Parliament. This is expected to take place today.
Amendments to the bill, which were put forward and voted on in the House of Commons, were considered and approved by the House of Lords. The amendments were aimed at clearing up potential confusion over whether a lease can have a peppercorn rent after it has been regranted, even where no new premium is paid.
However, there was debate over some of the amendments which have not made it into the bill. These include requiring landlords to inform leaseholders of the changes introduced by the bill, which Lord Greenhalgh ‒ who introduced the bill to the Lords ‒ said was “not workable”.
“The original amendment placed a duty on all landlords, even if they were not residential, and did not specify how each landlord may satisfy their legal duties contained within the clause,” he said, adding “To make this clause workable would take up further parliamentary time and cause delay to the implementation of the new peppercorn rents that we all want to see.”
This was challenged however by Lord Stunnell of the Liberal Democrats who warned that this “loophole” could be exploited by “unscrupulous landlords”.
The bill passed the first Commons stage unopposed, while at the third reading a key amendment ‒ which would have seen ground rent eliminated for existing properties ‒ was defeated.
