There are campaigners who believe that Ground Rent is legalised theft and that they should be abolished.

We see it as a complete opposite.  As explained on the previous page, Ground Rents cover the difference between what the flat would have been worth as Commonhold and its value as a Leasehold.

Every last single leasehold flat in this country was purchased with legal advice.  No Leaseholders can claim that they did not understand the nature of the contract to which they were committing.  Demanding that Ground Rents are abolished is no different from buying a car on PCP and then moaning that the monthly payments are not fair because people who bought their car outright do not have to pay monthly as well.

Additionally, there is an investor angle to this proposal.  It appears that Mr Gove and his team wish to take Leaseholders into the sweetshop and give them something for free.  But every time a leasehold is released from their contract to pay ground rent, somebody's income disappears.  A windfall gain to Leaseholders is an arbitrary confiscation of an asset.

The people losing their income from Ground Rents have not figured highly in this debate, but they too are real people with lives and with the right not to have their assets expropriated.