Leasehold Reform
Why Reform Matters
Leaseholders across different buildings keep describing the same problems: rising charges, weak transparency, poor accountability, difficult complaints, and too little control over the management they fund. That is why reform has gathered momentum. The issue is not a run of isolated disputes. It is a structure that keeps reproducing the same imbalance between the people making the decisions and the people paying for them.
What matters for leaseholders is not just that reform is happening. It is what reform may change for your flat, your costs, your options and timeframes. Better rights can improve the landscape. They do not remove the need to be organised and act.
Latest Reform Progress
This matters because leaseholders are no longer looking at a purely theoretical reform agenda. Some changes are already on the statute book. Others are directionally clear but still depend on timing, technical detail, or further legislation.
In force
The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 means the worst ground-rent abuses are now concentrated in existing leases, not new ones.
Why it matters: Reform is no longer theoretical. The legal baseline has already started to shift in favour of leaseholders.
In force
The 2024 Act bans most new leasehold houses, with limited exceptions.
Why it matters: It reduces one of the most controversial forms of leasehold on new-build homes.
Passed, pending implementation
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 makes lease extension and enfranchisement rights stronger and easier to access in principle, even though different parts are being phased in over time.
Why it matters: Stronger long-term security, better value protection, and easier access to lease extension or freehold rights sooner.
Passed, pending implementation
The 2024 Act widens eligibility for Right to Manage and is meant to reduce some of the historic cost barriers that stopped leaseholders from acting.
Why it matters: More blocks should have a realistic route to control management without being priced out of the process.
Passed, pending implementation
LAFRA introduces prescribed formats, stronger information rights, tighter legal-cost recovery rules, and an effective ban on insurance commissions are all designed to make charges easier to understand and challenge.
Why it matters: Opaque costs should become easier to question, compare, and challenge.
Proposed next
The government has announced plans to cap ground rents on existing long residential leases at £250 per year, with that cap reducing over time to a peppercorn after 40 years.
Why it matters: Lower ongoing cost, fewer saleability problems, and a gradual end to monetary ground rents for many existing leaseholders.
Proposed next
The direction is to replace new leasehold flats with a reformed commonhold model, where flat owners collectively own and control their building.
Why it matters: A better long-term ownership model with control and cost accountability in the hands of residents from the outset.
Proposed next
Further reforms are expected to pick up more Law Commission recommendations on enfranchisement, Right to Manage, and the path from leasehold to commonhold.
Why it matters: A more practical route away from leasehold over time, even if change remains gradual.
Reforms are moving in the right direction, but they will not all arrive at once and will only count when they are actually put to use in real buildings.
What This Means For Leaseholders
Reform matters because it is intended to improve the parts of leasehold that affect people most directly: value, control, cost visibility, and the long-term future of their flats.
Longer lease extensions, lower ground-rent exposure, and clearer enfranchisement rights are all intended to improve mortgageability, resale prospects, and long-term value.
Expanded RTM eligibility and stronger service-charge rules are meant to shift power back toward leaseholders and make poor management easier to challenge or replace.
Prescribed formats, information rights, and tougher limits on hidden commissions make service charges easier to understand and harder to manipulate.
The longer-term direction is not just improving leasehold, but creating a better ownership model through commonhold and stronger resident control.
What Reform Will Not Do
One of the biggest risks for leaseholders now is misunderstanding what reform does and does not solve. Better law does help but it doesn't take the next step for you. Do not fall for the common myths.
Reforms are designed to cap and phase down payments, not necessarily write ground rents to zero on day one and reduce costs. Leaseholders will still need to review evidence, use the rights available, and make decisions at the right time.
Reform should make enfranchisement easier and cheaper, but not free. Premiums and costs are currently being heavily challenged and may likely still remain.
You may get better rights and better routes to challenge or replace them, but someone still has to get block buy-in and take the optimal route.
Building-safety liabilities sit largely under separate legislation and schemes. Leasehold reform is not a blanket bailout.
It can reduce some risks and rebalance some power, but it does not remove the need for evidence, timing, and practical action.
Getting ready
This is where reform becomes practical. The best time to prepare is before the next bill, offer, delay, or dispute lands.
Start with getting to understand your lease. Reform builds on your current position. It does not replace the need to fully grasp it.
We provide a lease health-check that surfaces red flags, key dates, and which enacted or proposed reforms matter most to your flat.
For some leaseholders, waiting may make sense. For others, especially where service charges are out of control, with lease issues or a sale or remortgage is approaching, delay will cost significantly more than it saves.
We model practical scenarios such as extend now versus later, likely benefit from proposed changes, and statutory versus informal routes.
Many of the strongest rights are collective. Right to Manage, enfranchisement, and future commonhold conversion all depend on neighbours being able to coordinate. A block with communication and basic momentum is in a much stronger position than one starting from zero under pressure.
We enable leaseholders to find each other, create a residents group, run simple polls, and build enough alignment to act when the timing is right for the benefit of the block.
Historic service-charge demands, year-end accounts, Section 20 notices, repeated repairs failures, unexplained spikes, repeated repairs failures, and safety issues all become more useful when they are organised and analysed properly. Stronger rights work best when the evidence is already there.
We turn scattered documents and recurring issues into a usable evidence base with timelines, categories, and clearer patterns.
As reforms progress, some freeholders may offer informal lease extensions or variations that look attractive in the short term but reduce the value of future rights.
A short-term solution is not always optimal in the long-term.
We help leaseholders assess when an offer looks harmless, risky, or worth getting independent specialist advice on before signing anything.
Even before formal conversion is realistic, blocks can start acting more like resident-led buildings: delegated responsibilities, better records, clearer communication, shared priorities, and stronger neighbour coordination.
That improves today's position and makes tomorrow's options more achievable.
We support blocks with commonhold and resident-control readiness instead of waiting until change becomes urgent.
What This Means For Leaseholders
The real advantage does not come from following the reform story at a distance. It comes from being organised enough to benefit when stronger rights arrive or when your building reaches a decision point.
We are not just explaining what is changing. We are helping leaseholders use change to their benefit, reduce the risk of being caught out, and move from reactive decisions to better-timed ones.
YOUR NEXT STEP
Understand your current leasehold position, the problems worth addressing and the rights and options available to you today.
