Leasehold reform in England and Wales: What’s happening and when?
Find out about the implementation of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 and further proposed reforms.
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (LFRA) 2024 received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. The remaining parliamentary stages of the bill were fast-tracked in the wash-up period before the 2024 general election.
The act applies to England and Wales. It implements commitments in the Conservative government’s 2017 housing white paper to “improve consumer choice and fairness in leasehold”. It also takes forward many of the leasehold reform recommendations made by the Law Commission in their reports of 2020.
The LFRA 2024 will strengthen leaseholders’ rights. It will:
- make it cheaper and easier for leaseholders in houses and flats to extend their lease or buy their freehold, including by removing the requirement to pay marriage value.
- increase the standard lease extension term to 990 years, with ground rent reduced to a peppercorn (zero financial value), upon payment of a premium.
- change the qualifying criteria to give more leaseholders the right to extend their lease, buy their freehold and take over management of their building.
- ban the granting of new leasehold houses (with some exceptions).
- improve the transparency of:
- service charges and give leaseholders a new right to request information about service charges and the management of their building.
- administration charges and buildings insurance commissions.
- remove the presumption that leaseholders pay their landlord’s legal costs when challenging poor practice and give them a new right to apply to claim their legal costs from their landlord.
- extend access to redress schemes for leaseholders where the freeholder manages the property directly.
- ensure that relevant property sales information is provided to leaseholders in a timely manner.
The act will also strengthen the rights of freehold homeowners on private and mixed-tenure estates. The Library’s constituency casework page on freehold estate management provides further information about these measures.
The explanatory notes to the LFRA 2024 provide further information on its provisions.
The act follows on from the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which put an end to ground rents for most new residential leasehold properties in England and Wales.
When will leaseholders benefit?Although the LFRA 2024 has received Royal Assent, the majority of the provisions are not yet in force. Many will require further consultation on the details and secondary legislation to be commenced.
The Labour government has committed to implement the act “as quickly as possible”, whilst recognising “the significant complexity of the task and the importance of taking the necessary time to ensure that reforms are watertight.”
The Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook, set out the government’s intended sequencing for bringing the act’s provisions into force in a written statement to Parliament on 21 November 2024. He also reported that a small number of specific but serious flaws had been identified in the act which would need to be rectified via primary legislation.
To date the government has:
- laid regulations to permit leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold without having to wait for two years after purchasing their property. The regulations came into force on 31 January 2025.
- laid regulations to implement the act’s Right to Manage (RTM) provisions. This includes changing the qualifying criteria to give more leaseholders the RTM and removing the requirement for leaseholders to cover the freeholder’s legal fees when making an RTM claim. The regulations came into force on 3 March 2025.
- consulted on proposals to prevent freeholders, property managing agents and landlords from imposing opaque and excessive charges related to building insurance, often in the form of commissions. The government will take the consultation responses into account as it refines the policy and considers secondary legislation.
- launched a joint consultation with the Welsh Government on measures to strengthen leaseholder protections over charges and services. The consultation closed on 26 September 2025 and the government is analysing the feedback.
The LFRA 2024 sets the method for calculating the cost of a statutory lease extension or freehold acquisition. Marriage value will no longer form part of the calculations. The government intends to consult on the rates to be used in the calculations. The rates will then need to be set out in secondary legislation.
The consultation has been delayed due to legal challenges from groups of freeholders. The High Court dismissed the legal challenges on 24 October 2025. Following the judgment, the government said it “will consult on valuation rates and commence the relevant provisions [in the act] as soon as possible.”
The Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) has published information for leaseholders who are considering extending their lease: Should I wait or extend my lease now?
Regulation of property managing agentsThe government also intends to strengthen the regulation of property managing agents. As a first step, it has consulted on proposals to introduce mandatory professional qualifications for managing agents in England. The consultation also sought views on whether a similar approach should be taken in Wales. The consultation closed on 26 September 2025 and the government is analysing the feedback.
The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform BillThe Labour Party manifesto 2024 (PDF) committed to “bring the feudal leasehold system to an end”. To this end, the government published a draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill on 27 January 2026. A draft bill is an early version of a bill, which the government publishes to give Parliament, industry experts, and consumer groups the opportunity to scrutinise the proposals in detail and suggest improvements before legislation is introduced.
The draft bill applies to England and Wales. It would:
- reinvigorate the commonhold tenure by modernising the legal framework. Commonhold was introduced through the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 as a way of enabling the freehold ownership of flats and avoiding the shortcomings of leasehold ownership. However, it has failed to be used as a widespread form of homeownership. In 2020, the Law Commission published a report on reinvigorating commonhold. The government published a commonhold white paper on 3 March 2025, which set out its proposals for reforming commonhold.
- ban the use of leasehold for most new flats to make commonhold the default tenure. The government has launched a consultation to seek views on its proposals, including the scope and timing of the proposed ban and any exemptions. The consultation closes on 24 April 2026.
- cap ground rents at £250 a year, changing to a peppercorn after 40 years, with the cap likely to come into force in late 2028, subject to parliamentary approval.
- abolish the threat of forfeiture, replacing it with a fairer and more proportionate lease enforcement scheme.
- repeal the disproportionate enforcement powers (under the Law of Property Act 1925) that apply to estate rentcharges on private freehold estates and require rentcharge owners to provide notice before commencement of enforcement action for estate rentcharge arrears.
Alongside the draft bill, the government has published a guide to the bill, explanatory notes, and a policy statement on addressing unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, which provide more detailed information.
The government has invited the Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Select Committee to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft bill. The Committee will consider oral and written evidence, before publishing a report with conclusions and recommendations to the government. Further information is available on the HCLG Committee website.
Leasehold reform in WalesThe legislation governing leasehold ownership currently applies in England and Wales but there are some differences in notices and other document requirements.
The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 applies to long residential leaseholds in Wales. The Welsh Government has published guidance for leaseholders, landlords and agents.
The majority of the provisions in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 apply to Wales. The Welsh Government will introduce subordinate legislation to implement the act. The Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, Jayne Bryant, provided an update on leasehold reform to the Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament on 7 March 2025.
The Welsh Government’s Programme for Government 2021-26 commits to “legislate to enact the recommendations of the Law Commission in relation to leasehold reform.” The Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government published a written statement on the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill on 30 January 2026.
Further informationHCLG Committee, Draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill: Housing Committee launches inquiry examining draft legislation, 4 February 2026
Written Statement (HCWS1278) by the Housing and Planning Minister on Commonhold and Leasehold Reform, 27 January 2026
MHCLG, PM: “We’re capping ground rents at £250”, 27 January 2026
Commons Library, The ground rents cap, 29 January 2026
Commons Library briefing: Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill 2023-24: Progress of the Bill, February 2024
Commons Library briefing: Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill 2023-24, December 2023
Commons Library briefing: Leasehold and Commonhold Reform, September 2023
Gov.uk: Guide to the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill, November 2023
Senedd Research, Service charges: what’s changing for leaseholders in Wales?, December 2025
About the author: Hannah Cromarty is a senior researcher at the House of Commons Library specialising in housing and homelessness.
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