Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what guidance his Department has issued on the minimum (a) number and (b) proportion of leasehold flats that a freeholder must own in a building in order to render all other leaseholders of the building ineligible for leaseholder protections under Section 117(3)(c) of the Building Safety Act 2022.

Current leaseholder protection guidance published 21 July 2022 on gov.uk sets out that leaseholder-owned buildings includes:

(a) collectively enfranchised buildings – where some, or all, of the qualifying leaseholders have bought the building’s freehold;

(b) any building where leaseholders directly own the freehold, including through a company, where there is no separate freeholder; and,

(c) other circumstances where the freehold is owned 100% by one or more leaseholders.

The effective date in relation to the leaseholder protections under the Building Safety Act 2022 is 14 February 2022.