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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to include retirement property leaseholders as a separate category in planned leasehold and commonhold reform.

Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will honour its manifesto commitment to finally bring the feudal leasehold system to an end.

We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.

We have made clear that we intend to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.

The Government intends to act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. As part of the King’s Speech, we committed to consulting on the best way of restricting the sale of new leasehold flats. This consultation will provide an opportunity for interested stakeholders to make their views known.