01-March-2023

Micheal Gove recently announced that the UK government is planning to scrap leasehold laws that prevent some flat owners from buying their freehold of their properties.

Micheal Gove said: “The Government will also make it easier for leaseholders of flats to bring their buildings into a common ownership model, this would mean they avoid paying costly ground rents and management fees on their properties.”
“Leasehold is ‘unfair’ and that in crude terms if you buy a flat it should be yours.”
“You shouldn’t be on the hook for charges that managing agents and other people can land you with which are gouging.”

Micheal Gove has now launched a consultation which if they was approved it would help millions of of people and families that are living in leasehold properties and could give them greater power to buy their property outright before the next election. Other changes could include no longer requiring leaseholders to pay for costly repairs such as unsafe cladding, as the burden would then shift to landlords. Micheal Gove also warned that the changes require legislation because you got to tangle all the deals going back hundred of years and then untangling all of that will be difficult. He also added that leasehold is an unfair form of property ownership and it is a very outdated system that needs to go.

Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, Leasehold Minister said: “The current leasehold system is outdated, unbalanced and broken and we are determined to fix it.”
“Our proposals aim to rebalance power and should see more leaseholders then ever before owning the full rights to their homes. This comes on top of our new approach building safety, which includes decisive action to protect leaseholders.”

In 2019 the UK government already started to ban new-build homes being sold as leasehold properties with the change of the effect coming in June 2022.