Today’s King’s Speech set out the government’s legislative priorities for the coming parliamentary session, with housing and property reform once again taking a prominent place.
Among the announcements, the commitment to introduce the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill stood out as a significant signal of continued momentum behind leasehold reform.
Mark Chick is Joint Head of our Landlord & Tenant team comments:
“I warmly welcome the commitment in today’s King’s Speech to bring forward the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill (CLRB) in the next session of parliament – this shows the government’s ongoing commitment to the reform of the law in this area.
At a time of political and geopolitical uncertainty many will also welcome what may be seen as ‘good news’ for consumers – although with other pressing matters to be attended to it remains to be seen how much parliamentary time will actually be available for this.
I and others working in leasehold very much look forward to seeing the proposed fixes to the ‘known flaws’ in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 which the Housing Minister has promised will be included in the draft Bill when it is put before parliament. This in now not likely to appear before the Autumn.
These fixes will be hugely material to understanding the likely timescale for ‘switching on’ the valuation changes in LAFRA although the Human Rights Act challenges will still need to be dealt with.
It is perhaps disappointing that we didn’t see, as some might have expected, news of a bill dealing with the implementation of the remainder of the Law Commission’s recommendations. Perhaps this is a sign that the government has its eye on other things at the moment as this would be a sizeable piece of legislation.
The key thing is of course to ensure that all any legislation brought forward is ‘fit for purpose’ given that this is a complex detailed area of property law. Perhaps the government’s ambition has been capped at dealing with the proposals in the CLRB on the basis that these bring about enough of a sea change in property ownership as and when commonhold is introduced.”
The Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee has been undertaking an inquiry examining the UK Government’s draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. The committee is expected to publish a report with recommendations to the Government on how to improve the draft legislation within the next month.
