The study, which was launched in March 2014 by the CMA's predecessor the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), is looking at whether the market is working well for leaseholders and whether there is effective competition in the sector.
The CMA has identified a number of causes for concern about how the market works. It says that some leaseholders appear to suffer from a lack of control over aspects of property management, and may experience excessive or unnecessary charging for services arranged by property managers, poor service quality, insufficient transparency, poor communication and ineffective redress.
At the same time, other leaseholders are satisfied with their property management services and the CMA has found evidence to suggest that the existing checks and balances in the market can work well.
In light of this, the CMA has set out some views on possible remedial action to improve the performance of the market and secure better outcomes for leaseholders, on which it is seeking views.
‘Whilst the market works well for some leaseholders, our emerging findings suggest that improvements may be needed in a number of areas,’ said Rachel Merelie, CMA senior director of delivery.
‘Given the broad range of issues we are considering, we have decided to seek views at this stage on a range of possible remedies to the problems we have identified. This will help us to develop recommendations that are both effective and proportionate,’ she added.
