It's a nice model, but in practice it doesn't work like that. The older freeholders do as little as possible, sometimes employing managing agents to do as littl

It's a nice model, but in practice it doesn't work like that. The older freeholders do as little as possible, sometimes employing managing agents to do as little as possible on their behalf. For example, see all the freeholders doing nothing about the unsafe cladding on flats. The new freeholders (developers of new build housing estates) have learnt that they can do as little as possible, increase the charges whenever they want and increase the price of buying them out: win-win-win! The system is so ridiculous that the record of who owns the freehold of many houses built over a century ago has been lost. Someone owns it, but no one knows who. So homeowners have to take out insurance to cover the payments in case the freeholder's descendants ever get found and come knocking.