HC Deb 21 March 1955 vol 538 cc1742-4
45. Mr. Parkin

asked the hon. Member for Finchley, as representing the Church Commissioners, what plans the Commissioners have for protecting the value of church property by making loans to leaseholders to enable repairs and improvements to be made to houses which would otherwise fall into decay.

Sir J. Crowder

None. Leases granted by the Commissioners normally place the responsibility for repairs on lessees. As regards improvements the Housing Repairs and Rents Acts, 1954, enables a lessee whose lease has more than 15 years to run to apply to his local authority for a grant, and the Commissioners would always be willing to advise a lessee in this matter.

46. Mr. Parkin

asked the hon. Member for Finchley, as representing the Church Commissioners, what steps are being taken to prevent the disposal of un expired leases of Church Commission property to persons unable to maintain the fabric according to the terms of the original lease.

Sir J. Crowder

Where the terms of a lease require the Commissioners' consent to an assignment, they take steps to ensure that the assignee will be able to keep the property in good condition. Where there is no such condition in an old lease the Commissioners can do nothing.

Mr. Parkin

Does not that reply indicate a certain helplessness on the part of the Commissioners? Will not they try to do something more useful than merely advising people to go to the local authorities? Have they no business sense or social sense?'

Sir J. Crowder

The lady referred to in the Question is a lessee and not a weekly tenant. In this case we are dealing with the building society which pays the ground rent.

Mr. Bellenger

Is the hon. Member quite right in stating that the Commissioners can do nothing? Surely they can serve a schedule of dilapidations and, if necessary, go to the court, ask for possession, become landlords themselves and carry out the repairs?

Sir J. Crowder

Yes, the Commissioners could do that. But I think the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) wanted more. He wanted us to deal direct with the leaseholder.

47. Mr. Parkin

asked the hon. Member for Finchley, as representing the Church Commissioners, what help the Commissioners are able to offer to a widow in Paddington, whose name and address have been supplied to them, to enable urgent necessary repairs, costing several hundred pounds, to be carried out to the house of which she is the leaseholder and which she cannot pay for out of her combined family income of£6 10s. per week.

Sir J. Crowder

In this case the ground rent payable to the Commissioners is £7 per year, and the lease has 33 years to run. The Commissioners could not undertake repairs which are not their responsibility but those of a lessee who bought a lease with full knowledge of her obligations.

Mr. Parkin

It is all very well talking about "full knowledge of her obligations," but have not we here a perfectly good property which will fall to pieces over the next 33 years because the Church Commissioners have no more sense than to let it get into the hands of such lessees and without giving any assistance in keeping it in repair?

Sir J. Crowder

I will make further inquiries, but as landlords I do not see what we can do in the matter at present, beyond seeing what the building society which has lent the money on the lease is prepared to do.

Mr. MacColl

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if the Commissioners cannot be a little more co-operative and helpful they will be as unpopular as their predecessors in title, the Paddington Estates, who allowed the property to get into the state that it was?

Sir J. Crowder

These people are not tenants. They are leaseholders, and this lease has 33 years to run. It is quite a different position from that of a weekly tenant.