Meeting of the Parliament 23 May 2018
As others have said, there is a lot in the Conservative motion that I can agree with—not least the basic statement of the fact that we have a problem with common repairs to tenement properties. If I am going to declare an interest today, it is that I am an owner-occupier in an estate of about 270 privately owned ex-council tenements. I paid about £25,000 for my flat in 1990, and it is probably now worth between two and three times that. However, during those 28 years, there has been no substantial maintenance work done and, as far as I am aware, not even a thorough inspection.
We have factors in place and I have no complaint about that. They arrange common buildings insurance and grounds maintenance, as well as charging what I think is a fairly modest administration fee. However, even then, some owners have substantial arrears, and the factors have said that they have more problems with owner-occupiers than they do with landlords who let out their property. There can also be a lack of understanding that the admin fee does not go into maintenance work or some sinking fund.
The problem in our estate is an unwillingness or an inability on the part of owners to pay for regular checks and maintenance, so the estate—which won an award for refurbishment by Bellway Homes—has basically been deteriorating for the past 29 years, and it looks as if it will keep deteriorating for the next 29 years.
Just on Monday, another resident in the estate—obviously, a constituent—phoned me to see whether we could arrange a public meeting, maybe change the factors, or take some other action to move things forward. I explained to him that we had a large public meeting, but could not find six residents to form a residents committee. However, I will meet him next week to go over things again.
Given that there is a problem, what are we going to do about it? We could say that it is private matter and that Parliament should stay clear of it. Some good things are going on at the moment, but they are often on a very small scale. Some of the housing associations in my constituency are working with Glasgow City Council to purchase few of the worst flats in the hope of improving a whole close, but inevitably that is happening on a small scale. From speaking to property managers, housing associations, RICS and others, it seems to me that there is a widespread feeling that things need to change. That is why Ben Macpherson has led on setting up a working group and why a number of back benchers are keen to look at the options.
I have two main questions. First, what is the model that we are aiming to get to? Could there be a voluntary scheme of regular inspections, which would make owners and potential purchasers aware of problems with their properties and, we would hope, encourage them to take action? Alternatively, does there need to be an element of compulsion, possibly including a requirement for factors, or at least more formal self-factoring, which I think is what the Labour amendment proposes in talking about “co-operative arrangements”?
Secondly, how, and how quickly, can we move to such a desired model? Especially if we agree that we need some level of compulsion, how do we cope with the many owner-occupiers who just do not have savings to pay a hefty maintenance bill and who do not have sufficient income to borrow commercially? We would need to look at innovative methods, such as interest-free loans that are repayable only when a flat is sold or transferred, which I think the SFHA mentions in its briefing.
With any of those options, there are likely to be costs to home owners, and that has the potential to be politically challenging. If one party went into an election with such a proposal, I fear that it could cause it problems. Therefore, this is an issue that would benefit hugely from cross-party agreement, and I hope that the working group, together with the Government, can look through the various alternatives and come up with something on which there is broad consensus, in relation to the model that we are aiming for and the timescale for implementing it.