Leasehold Property law. Personally delivered.
Leasehold Property law. Personally delivered.
The 2024 Act's headline changes are still not in force. Our leasehold solicitors explain where reform stands in 2026 and when waiting is the wrong call.
Reviewed 25 July 2026
It is the question we are asked more than any other, and the honest answer is that for most leaseholders the risk of waiting now outweighs the saving.
Very little. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 received Royal Assent in May 2024 and promised extensions of 990 years, the abolition of marriage value, and each side bearing its own costs. More than two years later, one substantive enfranchisement provision has been commenced: the two-year ownership requirement was abolished with effect from 31 January 2025, so a buyer can now serve notice as soon as they are registered.
Everything else remains dormant. Every claim served today proceeds under the 1993 Act exactly as it stood before the 2024 Act was passed — ninety years, and marriage value payable once the lease falls below eighty.
Three reasons, and none of them is about to resolve quickly. The 2024 Act contains technical defects that require further primary legislation before its enfranchisement provisions can be switched on. A draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill was published in January 2026 and scrutinised by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which reported in May and called for the final Bill to be introduced in the autumn. And the provisions on marriage value and costs are under challenge: the High Court dismissed a judicial review brought by freeholder interests in October 2025, and the Court of Appeal has since granted permission to appeal.
Two consultations opened in July 2026, on the valuation rates to be prescribed under the new Standard Valuation Method and on enfranchisement process costs. Both close in September. Even on an optimistic reading, Royal Assent is unlikely before the middle of 2027, and the rates that will actually determine premiums are not yet known.
Your lease is getting shorter while you wait, and in most cases the premium rises as it does. A lease at eighty-two years today may be below eighty before any reform commences, at which point marriage value becomes payable — the very cost the reform was meant to remove. That single fact undoes a great deal of the theoretical saving.
Today's cost is also knowable. A valuer can tell you what a claim will cost now. Nobody can tell you what the prescribed rates will be, when they will apply, or whether the Court of Appeal will disturb the provisions they rest on.
And other plans should not be held hostage. A sale, a remortgage or the administration of an estate cannot be paused indefinitely for legislation with no commencement date. In our experience that is the most common and most expensive reason to regret waiting.
It can be the right decision. Where the lease is comfortably above eighty years and can absorb several years of delay without crossing the threshold, where the ground rent is high enough that the proposed cap would make a material difference, and where nothing else in your plans depends on the lease — waiting is a reasonable bet.
But it is a bet on a timetable you do not control, and it should be taken on your own figures rather than by default because reform is in the news.
If you would like a view on your own lease, we will tell you plainly whether waiting or proceeding is the better course — and how long your lease can afford to wait.
This article reflects our understanding of the position on 25 July 2026 and is general information rather than legal advice. The law in this area is changing: take advice on your own circumstances before relying on it.
Tell us what has happened and what you would like to achieve, and we will tell you plainly where you stand, what it is likely to cost and how long it will take.
