The way we build, own and manage homes these days has become incredibly complex and it’s frustratingly difficult to unravel or hold anyone to account.

I spent a day on Tuesday taking officers from a distant property management company around the Cornish properties their company manages. It gave the residents a good chance to ask questions about repairs that had not been done or service charges they felt were not transparent. It is frustrating that it took the intervention of the MP for this to happen.

Separately, on Wednesday, I visited a relatively new estate in a village in the middle of the constituency to look at – amongst other things – broken drains! The drain covers aren’t made to withstand cars driving over them yet they’re used in parking bays. The gulley doesn’t drain off and is blocked with weeds and rubbish so it doesn’t do anything, except trip people up. And yet neither the builder, freehold owner, housing provider or council have accepted responsibility.

The houses are ‘shared ownership’ between the tenants and a housing provider. The housing provider that owns the retained part of the property has appointed another housing provider as a managing agent. Both say they are not responsible for these drains.

The council say they’re not responsible for that part of the road either.

They all agree it’s not any of their responsibility and the tenant owners should fix the drains out of their own pocket.

As an aside, despite the properties being in a Cornish village with limited public transport, each house, even the 4 bedroom ones, seem only to have only been allotted one carparking space. The road is narrow and there isn’t much room for extra parking. It’s obviously inadequate and causes strife between neighbours.

I’m not particularly blaming anyone. The situation is simply too complex. But trying to mediate between householders and property management companies across Truro and Falmouth, and the fact that my small team whose job it is to help constituents have spent inordinate amounts of time being bounced around trying to fix property issues that are unsafe, has frustrated me immensely.

I’m pleased this government will finally be tackling some of the root causes of these problems. Our new commonhold law getting rid of leasehold ownership will make such a difference in future developments because the flat owners will automatically own their flats jointly as ‘commonhold’ rather than someone else being able to own them and charge ground rent and unaccountable management fees.

In the meantime, this government will also bring into force The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 which will ban new leasehold houses, make it easier for leaseholders to extend their leases, take over their buildings, and improve householders’ rights to get full transparency of any service and administration charges.

It will be great when the sector is finally regulated so that my staff and I are not spending so much time trying to help frustrated constituents navigate the morass of confusion about how they deal with their own homes.