With the one-year anniversary of Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook’s Ministerial Statement on leasehold reforms fast approaching, I felt it might be instructive to review Mr Pennycook’s progress on this over the last 12 months.
Pennycook’s statement on 21 November 2024 set out the road map that the Government was going to follow to implement the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.
To be fair to the Housing Minister, when he made his Statement, the Judicial Review challenge brought by a group of six freeholders hadn’t been granted (this happened in January 2025) and this has put a significant roadblock in place of planned reforms. The challenge was heard in July and an outcome is expected imminently, and it is only fair to judge Pennycook taking into account this unforeseen hold-up.
So, what did the statement say, and what progress has been made?
We will bring in the act’s Right to Manage provisions as a coherent package in Spring 2025
The lifting the non-residential element to 50% on right to manage claims, thereby expanding leaseholders’ access to the right to manage, and limiting the costs they can be made liable for, came into force as promised on 3 March 2025. The Act’s other provisions that would make similar arrangements for qualification for collective enfranchisement are not yet in force.
We will go out to consultation very shortly on the detail of the Act’s ban on building insurance commissions for landlords, property managing agents and freeholders.
The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government held a 12-week consultation which closed on 24 February 2025 to seek views on what payments should be allowed within the new category of permitted insurance fees in the Act, to ensure that any costs charged in relation to arranging or managing insurance are transparent and reasonable.
We will look to consult on the Act’s provisions on service charges and legal costs next year (2025).
The government undertook its consultation on leaseholder charges and services, which closed on 26 September 2025. The aim of the consultation was to engage all of those involved in managing leasehold buildings as well as leaseholders on how best they believe that the service charge and legal costs measures in the 2024 Act should be implemented.
Next summer we will consult on the valuation rates used to calculate the cost of enfranchisement premiums.
The promised consultation on the capitalisation and the deferment rates has not been launched, with the Government stating that it won’t start that process while the Judicial Review is ongoing. It looks pretty certain that until the legal challenge is complete there won’t be a consultation on rates. The implication of that is that it is hard to see how they can get on with the implementation of the rest of the reforms without the consultation on rates. As Mr Pennycook said: ‘We will fix the Act’s serious valuation flaws in primary legislation before implementing the package’ – there are known issues with the valuation of intermediate interests and the resolution of this can only come with primary legislation – to be contained presumably in the new Bill. So perhaps on another level the consultation on rates might be also premature until the pathway to resolving this issue is known.
Next year (2025) we will consult on implementing the Act’s new consumer protection provisions
The consultation titled ‘Strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services’, was launched in July 2025 and included the new consumer protection provisions.
We will publish an ambitious new Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform bill in this parliamentary session – our intention is that it will be published in the second half of next year
We are now very much in the second half of 2025 and as yet there is no sign of the Draft Bill. Recent utterances from Government have confirmed that the Draft Bill is still due by the end of 2025, despite the ongoing legal challenges. However, I think that we can safely anticipate that as a point of strategy the Government will not be likely to publish the Draft Bill until the decision in the Human Rights cases is known.
White Paper on reforms to commonhold early next year (2025)
The Government published the Commonhold White Paper in March 2025, which set out its plans for a comprehensive new legal framework for commonhold. The White Paper also confirmed the Government would ‘take decisive first steps to making commonhold the default tenure’. We await the draft Bill to tell us more about these plans.
We will consult next year (2025) on the best approach to banning new leasehold flats
The Commonhold White Paper outlined the plans to ban new leasehold flats, to give flat owners more control. The Consultation has not yet been announced, but there is still an expectation that this will be launched later this year. We await further news on this.
We will consult on new reforms to the section 20 major works procedure and introducing mandatory qualifications for managing agents
Both these issues were consulted upon in the ‘Strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services’ consultation. The Government is currently analysing the feedback received.
We will consult next year (2025) on legislative and policy options to reduce the prevalence of private estate management arrangements
In September 2025, in a written answer to a Parliamentary colleague, Pennycook stated: “we will consult this year on legislative and policy options to reduce the prevalence of private estate management arrangements, which are the root cause of the problems experienced by many residential freeholders”.
So, how has Mr Pennycoook done?
How far has the Housing Minister gone in meeting his objectives? The Government certainly gains points for bringing in the Right to manage provisions and for publishing the Commonhold White Paper. It has also, as promised, launched a number of consultations that look in detail at many of the elements in the Act, and the results of those should take us a step closer to implementation.
For leaseholders generally, their frustration is rising as the big changes in the Act are all just sitting there on the statute books ready to come in. The uncertainty also has made it difficult to advise as to the best course of action, although having said that, knowing that the Judicial Review process and Human Rights challenges are ongoing, means that we know that immediate changes in the valuation space are not likely any time soon.
The decision relating to the initial challenge regarding the infringement of the freeholders’ human rights should be imminent, but unfortunately it is unlikely to be the end of the story. It is quite possible that whichever ever side the decision goes against will appeal. And following that appeal, there is the prospect of taking the challenge to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Without being too gloomy about the timetable for implementation of the Act, it is also worth noting that the current challenge is taking place during the pre-implementation phase. Once the provisions in the Act are implemented there may well be another opportunity for legal challenges based on actual infringement of human rights rather than the current challenge which is based on the possibility of this happening and the impact that the unimplemented legislation has had on values.
Although the government may well have foreseen the legal challenge, it cannot really be entirely blamed for it. It has pushed ahead with many of the promised consultations that are required to make sure any secondary legislation is fit for purpose, but on the big issues of capitalisation and deferment rates, the government has made clear that they cannot move ahead until the outcome of the legal challenge is known. Which leaves everyone currently in a state of limbo.
All of this makes it quite difficult to provide some sort of ‘end of term report’ on progress so far. There has certainly been a good amount of effort, and Mr Pennycook certainly does not fall into the ‘must try harder’ category, as he is clearly committed to the reforms and is very energetic about them as can be shown from his time before taking office.
Whilst progress may not have been quite what Mr Pennycook might have hoped, he certainly scores at least 7.5 to 8 out of 10 in my book for the work done to date.
Mark Chick
22nd October 2025
If you have a query concerning leasehold property, then please contact the experts at Bishop & Sewell’s Landlord & Tenant team by emailing leasehold@bishopandsewell.co.uk or call on 020 7631 4141.
The above is accurate as at 22 October 2025. The information above may be subject to change. The content of this note should not be considered legal advice and each matter should be considered on a case-by-case basis
