[2025] EWHC 2751 (Admin)

Fecha: 24-Oct-2025

The submissions of John Lyon’s Charity on the Marriage Value Reform

The submissions of John Lyon’s Charity on the Marriage Value Reform

469.

John Lyon’s Charity makes the same submissions as the other claimants in relation to the removal of marriage value from the landlord’s compensation, but argues that those submissions have particular force because of the nature of its freehold portfolio:

The freeholds are located in St John’s Wood in PCL;

ii)

It submits that the tenants of its St John’s Wood Estate are likely to include a greater proportion of wealthier tenants and overseas tenants than the national average, an assertion which we find inherently persuasive in qualitative terms;

iii)

It submits that there is a particularly high number of tenants of its freeholds for whom the relevant leasehold is not their only property, with an estimate of 40% overall, and 50% of those with 80 years or less left to run. We accept that there are grounds for supposing that a significant proportion of the leaseholds from John Lyon’s Charity are held by tenants for whom this is not their only property. However, the title review conducted by John Lyon’s Charity to arrive at those figures does not readily provide a basis for distinguishing between tenants with more than one home but who are not engaged in the business of letting, or leaseholds owned by a company but used residentially by the ultimate beneficial owners of the company, and leaseholds where the property is let commercially;

iv)

It submits that there is a particular preponderance of leasehold properties in its freehold portfolio which were acquired by the current tenants with less than 80 years remaining on the lease, and seeks to infer that a buyer of such a lease will be likely to have a good understanding of the rights of enfranchisement. We are willing to assume this may well be the case.

470.

However, we are unable to accept that these features of the freehold portfolio of John Lyon’s Charity affect the conclusions we have reached as to the legitimacy of the objects of the LFRA 2024 for A1P1 purposes, (which do not depend on distinctions between different types of tenants), and as to the proportionality of removing marriage value as a means of achieving that object (which reflects features intrinsic to the concept of the lease as a wasting asset and to the concept of marriage value to which we have referred). Nor does the fact, if it is the case, that John Lyon’s Charity currently comprises a significant proportion of properties which, if subject to enfranchisement under the current regime, would involve the payment of marriage value affect our conclusions on the challenge to the removal of marriage value. The objects of the LFRA 2024, and the view which we have held that Parliament was entitled to reach that the removal of marriage value was an appropriate means of achieving those objects, while still ensuring fair compensation to landlords, are not altered by the profile of any particular freehold portfolio.