The National Trust agrees to remove modern ground rent (MGR)
TANT, The Tenants Association of the National Trust welcomes the announcement that The National Trust has at last agreed to remove the immense financial uncertainty for the vast majority of their long leaseholders of Modern Ground Rent. There will be a massive sigh of relief in some 300 homes this week as formal letters confirming this decision drop through the letter boxes of occupiers who have lived, for the last few years, with the threat of losing their homes and of houses that had become unsaleable. That threat has now been extinguished.
Supporting the campaign begun by a large group of leaseholders at Broadclyst together with smaller groups and individuals around the country, TANT has been instrumental in the complex and difficult process of convincing the National Trust resist taking advantage of the potential commercial gain arising as an unintended consequence of a loophole in the 1967 Leasehold Reform Act. TANT has at all times urged the Trust to apply the right moral compass and it is pleased that sense has prevailed. This has taken several years and involved, the Board of Trustees, NT Executives, the Charity Commissioners, Members of Parliament, Parliamentary Committees and a Government Minister.
This is one of the most significant cases with which TANT has been involved since it was formed, at the beginning of this century, to represent everyone who lives under a National Trust roof. This outcome is a testament to TANT’s resolve to work with the Trust and its tenants for better understanding and mutual benefit. TANT is the voice for some 10,000 people – shorthold and protected tenants, commercial tenants, farmers, smallholders and these long leaseholders. This achievement and the relief it brings, is another example of volunteers working successfully in a just cause.