As a reminder, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill started its journey through Parliament on 27 November 2023.

On 11 December 2023, the Bill received its Second Reading in the House of Commons and was generally welcomed by MPs.  The main criticism however was that the Bill didn’t go far enough and, most alarmingly, the Bill didn’t actually contain the promised ban on leasehold houses, nor any attempt to reinvigorate commonhold.

The Bill was then considered at Committee Stage, over 12 sittings between 16 January and 1 February 2024 – during which the Committee heard oral evidence, considered written evidence and examined the Bill line by line.

Now that the Bill has moved to the House of Lords for consideration (the First Reading took place last week, on 28 February), here is a quick summary of the key enfranchisement provisions that were ordered to stand and/or introduced during the Bill's passage through the House of Commons:

  • Removal of qualifying period required for enfranchisement/extension claims
  • Removal of restrictions on repeated enfranchisement/extension claims
  • Increase of non-residential limit to 50% for enfranchisement and RTM claims
  • Right for leaseholders to require landlord to take lease backs on enfranchisement claims
  • Implementation of uniform 990 year term for all lease extension claims
  • Removal of marriage value from valuation formula
  • Introduction of a new costs regimes for enfranchisement/extension and RTM claims
  • Transfer of jurisdiction for disputes from County Court to First-tier Tribunal
  • Introduction of new right for very long leaseholders (150+ years) to buy out ground rent (subject to cap) without having to make an enfranchisement/extension claim
  • A new exception to enfranchisement (but not extension claims) for tenants of certified community housing providers
  • A new right for tenants of National Trust properties to have a right to a lease extension, subject to exceptions and the requirement to grant the National Trust the right to buy back
  • And FINALLY! A ban on the grant of long leases on houses

It is worth noting here that we are also still awaiting a formal response from the Government on their consultation regarding the capping of ground rents in existing long residential leases.  As such, the Bill does not yet contain any proposals on this but it seems likely that these will make an appearance at some point too.

During the Second Reading in the House of Lords, all aspects of the Bill will be debated, but the date for this is yet to be scheduled.

The original Bill was 140 pages – and in its current form, it now runs to 244!  

Although we were told that the Government would introduce additional measures/amendments as the Bill made its way through Parliament, the Shadow Housing Minister, Mathew Pennycook has expressed his “intense frustration” at the number of significant amendments that have been introduced to the Bill at the eleventh hour.  As he quite rightly says, this practice “impedes hon. Members in effectively scrutinising legislation and increases the likelihood that Acts of Parliament contain errors that subsequently need to be remedied...” - a sentiment shared by many!