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Andrew Melling makes a valid point. While in principle Commonhold should have offered key benefits to flat owners, its failure over the past 15 years has been in large part due to the convoluted, impractical and inflexible way it was originally designed by the government in 2002.

With respect to you Lou Valdini, you have misconstrued my point. I am no apologist for developers who have taken advantage of unsuspecting new homes buyers by selling onerous leases to them. Moreover, I fully support any new legislation that reigns in the abuses of leasehold that have recently come to light - and there are a number of possible ways this can be done.

I was simply pointing out that developers and lenders act out of self-interest. During the past 15 years sale by developers of Commonhold units has been a rarity. Anecdotally, after 13 years of lecturing across the country on long residential leases and meeting thousands of property lawyers in that time, I have only spoken with one lawyer -yes one - who has been instructed to act on a Commonhold development.

Also I cannot name a single lender that has ever regarded Commonhold as an acceptable security.

Developers and banks have the power to make or break any new system the government wants to introduce. One controls the supply of new homes, the other controls the money supply. If neither has embraced Commonhold to date, what guarantee is there that they would do so if it were to be reintroduced.