Leaseholders were promised clarity, simplicity and savings with the proposed Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill. A year later, too little of the Act has been implemented, secondary legislation has been delayed, and crucial test cases are stalled in the courts.

Many of its headline measures - the abolition of marriage value for leases below 80 years, caps on ground rents for valuation purposes where applicable, and greater transparency on service charges - remain dormant, dependent on secondary legislation or stalled by legal challenge.

High Court proceedings brought by John Lyon’s Charity, Cadogan Group, Grosvenor Group and others argue that provisions relating to valuation including the proposed removal of marriage value and capping ground rents for valuation purposes infringe their rights to enjoy property under the Human Rights Act. Even if the first rulings are delivered this year, appeals seem inevitable. Until resolved, the government is unlikely to press ahead decisively.

The irony is that an Act designed to simplify has so far made the system more opaque and confusing creating more questions than answers. Practitioners surveyed by the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP) describe the Act variously as a ‘poisoned chalice’ and a ‘dog’s dinner’, reflecting the fact that transactions have slowed, costs are rising and confidence is ebbing.

Lawyers

For practitioners including lawyers and surveyors, our role seems to be shifting from one of interpretation to one of prediction and guidance. Clients want advice on whether to extend their leases or to acquire freeholds now or wait. If marriage value is abolished, many leaseholders with shorter leases could save thousands. If it is not - or if deferment and capitalisation rates shift unfavourably - waiting could prove costly.

Advisers are forced into uncomfortable territory: offering guidance based not only on the law as it stands, but on political promises, uncertain timetables and hypothetical outcomes. It is an unhealthy way to run a system underpinning millions of homes.

The government insists it is acting in the public interest. Leaseholders should not face opaque charges or exploitation, and few would dispute that. But reforms made without engaging with professionals, risk unintended and damaging consequences. Lawyers, surveyors and managing agents know how leasehold works in practice - and how reforms could disrupt it while practitioners can provide case studies, data and market insight.

Leasehold is often framed in emotive terms - ‘feudal’, ‘fleecehold’, and ‘unfair’. Such rhetoric, repeated by ministers themselves, risks flattening nuance into slogan. In reality, leasehold is not beyond saving. It is complex, technical and in need of reform, but it remains the legal framework that underpins the majority of flats in England and Wales.

Fairness

Neither is commonhold a ready-made alternative. In principle, it offers greater fairness: no external landlord, no ground rent, but in practice, it has never gained traction. Lenders remain wary, developers have little incentive to adopt it, and buyers have limited awareness. To mandate commonhold without a phased and consultative approach would be to replace one flawed system with another untested one.

What is needed now is not further political posturing but a pragmatic, evidence-based approach. We need a clear timetable for consultations, secondary legislation and implementation, while the government should engage with ALEP, the Law Society and others who deal with leasehold daily.

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act was well intentioned but unfinished. Without consultation, it has created further concerns where it promised progress. The next stage must not repeat that mistake, even if that means it takes a little more time.

Reform that ignores professional expertise risks unintended consequences, prolonged litigation and erosion of trust. The government must now listen to those who understand leasehold in practice, not just in theory. Without doing so, it risks creating a new generation of problems while trying to solve the old.

Shabnam Ali-Khan is partner at Russell-Cooke and a member of ALEP

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