Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is: "An Act to prohibit the grant or assignment of certain new long residential leases of houses, to amend the rights of tenants under long residential leases to acquire the freeholds of their houses, to extend the leases of their houses or flats, and to collectively enfranchise or manage the buildings containing their flats, to give such tenants the right to reduce the rent payable under their leases to a peppercorn, to regulate the relationship between residential landlords and tenants, to regulate residential estate management, to regulate rentcharges and to amend the Building Safety Act 2022 in connection with the remediation of building defects and the insolvency of persons who have repairing obligations relating to certain kinds of buildings."

It was enacted on 24 May 2024.

Amongst other things, the Act is intended to:

• Make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to buy their freehold, increase standard lease extension terms to 990 years for houses and flats.
• Provide greater transparency over service charges.
• Remove barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlords’ charges at Tribunal.
• Ban the sale of new leasehold houses other than in exceptional circumstances.
• End excessive buildings insurance commissions for freeholders and managing agents.
• Scrap the requirement for a new leaseholder to have owned their house or flat for two years before they can buy or extend their lease.
• Grant freehold homeowners on private and mixed tenure estates the same rights of redress as leaseholders, and equivalent rights to transparency over their estate charges.
• Help more leaseholders take over the management of their property.

It also makes a number of amendments to Part 5 of the Building Safety Act 2022.

• 114 Steps relating to remediation of defects.
• 115 Remediation orders.
• 116 Remediation contribution orders.
• 117 Recovery of legal costs etc through service charge.
• 118 Repeal of section 125 of the Building Safety Act.
• 119 Higher-risk and relevant buildings: notifications in connection with insolvency.

You can find out more at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/leasehold-reforms-become-law

You can see the Act in full at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/22/enacted

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Leasehold.
• Freehold.
• Building Safety Act.
• Grenfell Tower Fire.
• Remediation.