Mira Bar-Hillel - Exclusive interview

“I came to London in 1972 from Israel and started working my way up. My first position in journalism in the UK was with Building magazine, where I worked from 1973 as news reporter and subsequently news editor. My nine years there gave me a very good grounding in construction and planning, which many property journalists don’t possess. My news reporting largely covered social issues arising out of property development so I became very used to interviewing politicians. But this never gave me a buzz. I believe that it’s not what the powers that be say that’s important, it’s what they do. In the pieces that I write I prefer to make up my own mind and let the readers make up theirs.

“In 1982 I went freelance. Now I write mostly for the Evening Standard, but my work has also included television and the occasional piece for The Spectator. I have enough journalism awards to line my garage. But not once has winning any of those awards resulted in any career progress whatsoever! A warning to any young journalists out there: take the cheque but don’t imagine for one minute it will change your life.

You have been covering and researching the residential leasehold sector for some 11 years: what first prompted you to get involved in this area?

“The injustice of it all! That’s what makes me get out of bed in the morning. I believe that journalism is a very effective tool for implementing change for the better, in getting around society’s injustices. I’m not in it for the money, certainly not as a reporter anyway. But the fact that I work for the Evening Standard gives me a certain power to effect change for the good and this is what drives me forward.

“I got involved in reporting on leasehold issues in the summer of 1995. It was a strange coincidence that started the whole thing rolling. It was at the time of the sale of the Henry Smith Estate in South Kensington: the entire estate was sold to The Wellcome Trust in a manner which raised concerns about the1987 Landlord & Tenant Act. As a result, some people on the estate wrote to the editor of The Standard, Stewart Steven, a great and influential man, who called me into his office to ask me what on earth was going on. Steven decided to commission a four-page special pull-out entirely dedicated to the events on the estate. That got me interested in the leasehold sector and in the1993 Leasehold Enfranchisement Reform Act.

“Only a few months later, several people approached me with a much more pressing problem. A notorious landlord, Harold John Bebbington and his web of associates – known as ground-rent feeders - were buying up ground rents cheaply left right and centre and hiring contractors that he was associated with to carry out unneeded repair programmes and presenting the leaseholders with colossal bills for the works. As a result of his methods many leaseholders had to walk away from their homes as they couldn’t afford to pay. The leases were forfeit and the properties reverted to the same landlord. He effectively got flats for nothing. Having heard three of these cases within just weeks of each other I asked myself what on earth was going on. I went to see Stewart Steven again; he gave me two extra reporters and commissioned me to write about these ‘Nightmare Landlords’. We set up a phone line and in two weeks took 2,000 calls from distressed leaseholders complaining about rogue landlords. All their activities were reported in detail by the Evening Standard. We successfully exposed him, his associates and others like them.

“The next thread is that Stewart Steven happened to be a friend of John Gummer, then the Tory Secretary of State for the Environment. Steven went to see him in October 1995 and explained that his newspaper was running a campaign for leaseholders’ rights. I was instructed to get a story on leasehold every day for two weeks with all the resources I needed at my disposal. In a flurry, we published numerous pieces, all hinging on leaseholder issues: cases of leaseholders committing suicide, monumental repair bills that exceeded the value of the properties and so on. I saw that patterns were emerging in the way that leaseholders were being mistreated. The abuse of leasehold legislation by ground rent landlords in London and beyond was just unbelievable.

“Day after day, the Evening Standard named the offenders; we photographed them; we nailed them. But - and this is the crux – these people were not actually doing anything illegal. It became clear that if such grotesque injustices could happen within law, then the law is an ass. This is what my editor, Stewart Steven, said to John Gummer. In a matter of weeks, by December 1995, Gummer had removed a section of the Housing Act that was about to go before Parliament and inserted leasehold reforms. By summer 1996, they were on the statute book, one of the quickest laws to be passed that I ever remember.

“One of the biggest improvements in the 1996 Act was that it enabled people to have their cases heard not in a court but in a tribunal, without the need for solicitors and barristers and without the award of costs. Almost overnight this disarmed many rogue landlords who had been using the threat of court action to intimidate leaseholders into paying up.

“Putting a legal stop to these landlord abuses was one of the best things I have ever done in my life. Leaseholders now have the tools to protect them selves, to fight back, whereas in 1995 they weren’t even entitled to dispute service charges. Now the LVT regularly finds in favour of leaseholders even when they represent themselves.
I am proud that Stewart Steven and I helped bring this about.

Has the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 been a successful piece of legislation?

“Nick Raynsford, opposition spokesman for Housing when the ‘96 legislation was going through, made all kinds of promises about what Labour would do about further leasehold reform if elected. Labour got in 1997 and as we know unfortunately nothing happened until 2002. There was a year's delay because Michael Portillo refused to allow it through quickly before the 2001 election. Since it arrived, however, the 2002 Act has been an incredibly successful piece of legislation. The most important elements for leaseholders, apart from tidying up the 1996 Act, have been Right To Manag; removal of the residency tests for enfranchisement and positive changes in forfeiture rules.

“While I admit that some parts of the Act could be difficult for landlords my position is that I’m not really interested in problems facing ground rent landlords – no-one is compelled to be a landlord or agent, so if they can’t cope with new legislation, then they shouldn’t do it.

Do you think that Commonhold will ever take off?

“I was brought up in a Commonhold flat; it’s an excellent system but they will not be able to bring it in overnight, especially not in a highly conservative society. I just don’t see it happening. The reason why Commonhold is not taking off is because everyone who owns a flat is deterred at the re-selling stage in case the buyer’s solicitor gets the jitters; it’s better then to stick with the status quo, people think. It’s untried and untested in people’s minds. This is why developers are not choosing it. Until the developers start adopting Commonhold and it reaches critical mass I don’t see it going anywhere.

The public has serious reservations about property management for being unregulated. Do you think we will see the day when it is properly regulated?

“My belief is that people in all walks of life should be honest and there should be redress available in every profession. Regulation of managing agents is more of an issue for managing agents than it is for consumers, and I champion the consumer. With the LVT there is some redress for leaseholders, and I would certainly welcome more.

ARMA: do you believe it to be an influential organisation?

“I have had nothing to with ARMA since I asked the organisation some time ago to let me know when they discipline a member for misconduct and they refused. ARMA are not doing what I think they ought to do, but I have to point out that I am essentially a consumer journalist: ARMA is not an organisation for the consumer, for the leaseholders’ interests. They exist for their members who, in turn, serve the landlords. I do believe however that ARMA should stress upon their members the fact that leaseholders do have rights. They should buck up their ideas: if they discipline a member, for example, they should publish it. Unfortunately, self-regulation does not work in any professional field.

Which are the organisations in this sector that you believe exert genuine influence?

“I always refer people to LEASE; I think they do a terrific job, and it’s free. How many other organisations can offer such levels of expertise at no cost to the end-user?

“As for The LVT, it’s what we’ve got and it is definitely better than the courts. The LVT is sometimes criticised for not having a system of precedent, but I feel that you can’t have a system of precedent at that level of the judiciary. Precedent is for The Lands Tribunal. However, one of the principles of good litigation is consistency and the LVT should strive to eliminate the inconsistencies in its decisions that we frequently hear about and which are seriously damaging its reputation.

With leasehold apartments becoming ever more predominant in the UK’s housing development do you foresee increasing problems for homeowners?

“Leasehold is with us to stay. I don’t see it as a particular problem because it’s a system that has been with us for so long and the worst difficulties were addressed in the 1996 and 2002 Acts. And let no one imagine that commonhold is a panacea: just look at enfranchised blocks where the residents run the block. The problems may be different, but problems there certainly remain.

”Unfortunately there is going to be the continuing problem with affordability. We will never see affordable housing in London. The only solution would be a large, competitive, private rented sector.

”The way that property is bought and sold in this country is grotesque. I was lobbying for something like a seller’s pack back in 97 as a way of improving the buying/ selling process. I think opposition to HIP’s is largely stupid and the objections I hear – almost entirely from estate agents and politicians - are determinedly ignorant. For the consumer HIPs are essential.

“It’s a shame that there is so little media coverage of leaseholders’ issues. The national media is not sufficiently interested and it’s not considered sexy enough by the property publications and TV producers. And yet there is a need for a specialist media channel that speaks to all the country’s leaseholders, like News on the Block in fact.

“Working for the rights of leaseholders has definitely been the most satisfying thing that I have ever done in my life. Along with protecting new home buyers from rogue developers and helping the London Eye get off the ground. But that’s another story altogether …”