Leasehold Law Reform

EDM number 1554 in 1992-93, proposed by Nigel Griffiths on 09/03/1993.

That this House notes with dismay the failure of the Government to implement the recommendations of the 1988 Law Commission report to lift the burden of mediaeval privity law from small businesses and others; notes that people who have retired from business are now threatened with bankruptcy; notes that senior citizen Mr Harry Acaster and his wheelchair-using wife held a lease for a small baker's lock-up from 1984, re-assigned it with his landlord's full consent in 1987 and now finds himself threatened with bankruptcy by Mrs Fiona Burns-Brannan and Christopher Croft of the Plantotal Group, Merston Manor, Merstone, Isle of Wight who hold him responsible for non-payment by the re-assigned leaseholder and who, having extorted the Acasters' ú2,000 life savings are now forcing them to pay ú208 a month or to sign over their house on death with payment of ú8,000 plus 3 per cent. above the base rate and ú15,000 for maintenance, a total of ú40,000 for a lease with only six years to go; and urges the President of the Board of Trade to investigate this case and to take immediate action to repeal this draconian law.

This motion has been signed by a total of 58 MPs.