If you haven't heard of the ridiculous ways people whose homes are freehold or leasehold get fleeced by private companies, then you should watch Michelle Sheldon’s fast-moving, often funny account of a modern housing scandal based on the true story of three campaigning women.
Katie (Lucille Ferguson), Cath (Debbie Christie), and Jo (Sasha Ravencroft) each separately discover that buying their new homes as leaseholds, or so-called “virtual freeholds”, carries obligations and problems. Although they are told they can buy the freehold for a small sum later, the amounts demanded start to rise.
Meanwhile, they are required to pay hundreds in ground rent, various service charges and, to their astonishment, a charge for getting permission on even trivial matters connected to their home.
When Katie speaks to neighbours, she finds other irritated people. Claire was told she had to pay her “new freeholder £2,600 for permission to put up a conservatory”, and if she wanted to buy the freehold, it would now cost her £14,000.
Jo is shocked when she hears from her neighbours that the ground rent will double every ten years, and that the new corporate owners of her freehold are charging leaseholders £30,000 for their freehold.
As for the permission scam, which studies have found stretches even to the request to have a pet, Katie illustrates its absurdity with us buying beer from the bar and then being charged “for renting that glass. And not only charge you rent but charge you a permission fee for placing it on my floor between slurps or sorry, sips.”
As their campaign gathers momentum, there is an imagined visit from the late 19th century MP Henry Broadhurst (James Holmes), who told of even worse abuses whereby landowners would find ways of taking over people's homes despite their leasehold contracts. Determined to change the system, he put twenty-five bills before Parliament which failed against the sheer power of parliamentarians who were landlords.
He isn't surprised, pointing out in contrast that there were “4,000 acts of Parliament between 1760 and 1870 to enclose about 7 million acres of common land creating mass poverty for those people who used to farm the land.”
Despite this discouraging history, the campaign has been crucial in prompting the Leasehold And Freehold Reform Bill 2023. Louie Burns (Alexander Halsall), one of the leading campaigners for change, argues that “only England and Wales and a few other Commonwealth countries that still have leasehold as a hangover from feudal times... even our neighbours in Scotland and Northern Ireland brought in commonhold in 2014.”
Fleecehold bears witness to the remarkable struggle of the three women at the centre of this story. It is informative, funny and important. Let’s hope the law is changed, the business scams are eliminated and leaseholders across the country are released from the chains holding them to greedy landowners.