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17/12/25 3:30 pm
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Landlords hoping to see the ‘feudal’ leasehold system replaced with a more equitable commonhold regime have been disappointed after the Government yesterday broke its promise to publish a draft of its much-heralded Leasehold and Commonhold Bill.
Ministers had guaranteed to publish this draft legislation by the end of the year but have now said this will not happen due to ‘unforeseen delays’.
Some five million people, including hundreds of thousands of landlords, own leasehold flats in the UK and suffer the vagaries of expensive leasehold extensions and freehold purchases, unfairly jacked-up ground rents, opaque charges by management companies and other unjust and unreasonable ‘fleecehold’ tactics by a significant number of freeholders and estate management companies.
Some progress was made when the Tory’s Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act was rushed through parliament ahead of last year’s General Election, but few of its main planks have been implemented via the necessary secondary legislation and regulations.
This includes simplifying lease extensions, removing marriage value, increasing standard extension terms to 990 years, and banning new leasehold houses.
Labour has made progress in one area, yesterday announcing stronger protections for leaseholders on 'fleecehold' estates where even on newbuild sites, leaseholder face severe penalties for failing to pay high charges often for shoddy or non-existent work charged for by property management firms.
Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook (pictured): “Far too many homeowners living on newly developed housing estates are subject to unfair private management charges as a result of infrastructure remaining unadopted.
“We are determined to end the injustice of ‘fleecehold’ by reducing the prevalence of private estate management arrangements and providing existing homeowners on freehold estates with greater rights, protections and control over the places they live.”
But Linz Darlington (pictured), MD of lease extension specialists Homehold says this doesn’t detract from Labour’s failure to honour its manifesto pledges on leasehold reform.
“It seems that the Labour Government are working just quickly enough on leasehold reform so, to the general public, it looks like they’re making progress, but without much threat of having to implement a workable solution to such a thorny problem by the end of this parliament,” she says.
“In October the High Court enthusiastically dismissed a legal challenge brought by several groups of major freeholders, ruling that the enfranchisement provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 were legal. What more do this government need to press on and fulfil their manifesto promises?”
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