IT IS welcome news that the Housing, Communities and Local Government Parliamentary Select Committee and the Law Commission are both investigating longleasehold housing reform (The Argus, February 12).

Thousands of homeowners in Sussex and an estimated four to five million people in England and Wales are long-leasehold owners and many feel restricted by this outdated form of home ownership.

Long-leasehold owners nearly always pay for their flat or house by means of a mortgage and are responsible for paying for all internal and external maintenance.

Yet they are not given the full rights of ownership under the current law and have little control over how their money which is put into service charges and external maintenance is spent.

Sometimes, challenging excessive charges for these can result in threats and the addition of even more charges, both for socalled “administration” and “legal costs”.

Long-leases are often complicated, sometimes “feudal” in their wording, causing many problems with the buying and selling of property as well as practical problems while living in your own home.

It is time that long-leaseholders had control over their own home and that the system is changed because the complex system of longleasehold and its accompanying laws needs to be made fairer.

The system of long-leasehold in Scotland was changed many years ago under a Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition and other countries around Europe and the rest of the world have much fairer systems.

The current system sometimes leaves people out of pocket and without much say over their own home, some flat owners don’t even get to choose the colour of their own front door, something that was changed for council tenants many years ago.

There is currently an online petition to change long-leasehold.

You can help by signing it on petition.parliament.uk or through change.org.

Let’s hope that the very small number of wealthy vested interests don’t block these essential reforms once again because changing the system to one that is fairer, simpler and cheaper should benefit most people.

Rob Heale Chatham Place Brighton