Leasehold Consultation by Law Commission - Feb 2018

The Law Commission is calling for your comments on the Leasehold system :

In England, properties are usually owned either as freehold or as leasehold. Leasehold is a form of ownership where a person owns a property for a set number of years (typically, 99 or 125 years) on a lease from a landlord, who owns the freehold. Flats are almost always owned using leasehold, but in recent years it has also increasingly been used for newly built houses.

It is estimated that there are at least 4 million leasehold properties in England alone. However, we have been told that the law which applies to leasehold is far from satisfactory.

The Government has said that leasehold has “far too many problems including disproportionate costs to extend leases; poor value property management; and a slow and costly sales process”. Respondents to the consultation on our 13th Programme of Law Reform also identified numerous problems with residential leasehold law.

We have therefore been tasked with improving consumer choice, and with providing greater fairness and transparency for leaseholders.

Our project will, in the first instance, address three issues:

leasehold enfranchisement;

the regulation of managing agents; and

commonhold, which provides an alternative form of ownership to residential leasehold.

The project may be expanded to address other concerns with leases. We will not, however, be considering the law relating to tenants who rent their homes in shorter-term arrangements.

https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/residential-leasehold-and-commonhold/

The consultation is open for response from the members of public until 18 April 2018 .

Members who wish to contribute to the consultation should do so (until 13 April) via the Law Commission website shown. This thread is not a discussion, so it is closed.