Statement on Houblon Apartments, Aldgate

Network Homes owns 74 flats in the Houblon apartments building in Aldgate, London. The homes were built by Redrow which sold its interest and ground rents to Homeground in April 2016.

Ground rents at the apartments are set to double every 10 years up to the 50^th year of the 125-year term, and some high street lenders are not accepting these terms.

Network Homes did not set this ground rent – we pass on the charge through our Head Lease and don’t make any money from the charges.

We want to change the ground rent so the increases are not onerous but we need Homeground and Redrow to agree to this.

Homeground and Redrow need to work together to agree the way forward. This is a matter that Network Homes is not party to and has no ability to control.

Understandably this is a frustrating situation for our leaseholders. We have approached the Chief Executive of Redrow to encourage them to quickly resolve the situation and have contacted the Leasehold Reform Policy team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to ask them to help resolve the situation.

Both Redrow and Homeground have signed up to the Public Pledge for Leaseholders.

We’ll continue to work on our residents’ behalf to try and get this situation between Redrow and Homeground resolved.