Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his department is taking to expand leaseholder right of first refusal.

The government is committed to implementing measures in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 to make enfranchisement cheaper and easier.

The Act sets the method for calculating the price of a statutory lease extension or freehold acquisition, known as the valuation process. It removes the requirement for marriage value to be paid, caps the treatment of ground rents in the valuation calculation at 0.1% of the freehold value, and allows government to prescribe the rates used to calculate the enfranchisement premium.

Valuation rates used to calculate the enfranchisement premium will be set by the Secretary of State in secondary legislation. We will consult on valuation rates and commence the relevant provisions as soon as possible.

As per my Written Ministerial Statement of 21 November 2024 (HCWS244), primary legislation will be required to rectify a small number of specific flaws in the 2024 Act before the Act’s enfranchisement provisions are commenced.

Once brought into force, these measures, together with the already implemented removal of the two-year qualifying rule for enfranchisement, will mean leaseholders will be able to buy their freehold at any time, at a fair price.