[2025] EWHC 2751 (Admin)

On 3 March 2025, the Government published a White Paper on taking steps to bring leasehold to an end and to reinvigorate commonhold.

The current Government’s aims in implementing the LFRA 2024 were set out in a submission dated 1 April 2025 and approved by the Minister of State for Housing and Planning (see Shvidler at [134](6) above). The submission stated that:

“The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is a landmark piece of legislation that addresses issues that have caused widespread concern about the plight of leaseholders, as evidenced by Government consultations, and numerous reports such as those from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, the Law Commission and the CMA. These concerns are shared by all the major political parties, which led to the cross-party support the legislation received during its passage through Parliament.”

Paragraph 7 set out the Government’s aims in relation to the LFRA 2024:

“While ensuring sufficient compensation is paid by enfranchising leaseholders to landlords to reflect their legitimate property interests, the Government’s aims and objectives in implementing the enfranchisement reforms contained in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 are:

a.

To put an end to the leasehold system of home ownership and support the transition to freehold ownership of flats and houses and ultimately commonhold ownership of flats, by ensuring the cost of enfranchisement is fair and reasonable.

b.

To rebalance power in the enfranchisement market, making enfranchisement easier for leaseholders and preventing them from being required to overpay in order to obtain security of tenure or ultimate ownership of properties and removing elements of the costs that the Government believes are unfair.

c.

To protect enfranchising leaseholders from the consequences of high and escalating ground rents”

Only limited parts of the LFRA 2024 have been brought into force which are unrelated to the issues in this claim (see s.124 of the LFRA 2024). Some of the reforms, including the setting of rates for the purposes of enfranchisement valuation and costs, will be contained in secondary legislation which has not yet been made.