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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department's legislative proposals on leasehold reform will apply to (a) existing and (b) future leaseholders.

The Government remains committed to creating a fair and just housing system that works for everyone. We will be taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to improve fairness and transparency in the leasehold market.

We have already taken action to end unfair practices in the leasehold market, beginning with the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which comes into force on 30 June 2022. The Act will make homeownership fairer and more transparent for thousands of future leaseholders, by preventing landlords under new residential long leases from requiring a leaseholder to pay a financial ground rent. In addition to the Ground Rent Act, thousands of existing leaseholders have also already seen a reduction in their inflated ground rent costs. The Competition and Markets Authority secured commitments from major homebuilders to remove lease terms that led to doubling ground rents, and where houses were sold as leasehold, to support leaseholders to buy the freehold at the original price quoted.

The Government will make it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy the freehold of their property, including allowing existing and future leaseholders to extend their lease by 990 years at a peppercorn rent, abolishing marriage value and capping the treatment of ground rent in the valuation calculation at 0.1% of the property value. We will enable leaseholders, where they already have a long lease, to buy out the ground rent without the need to extend the term of the lease.

We have been clear about our commitment to addressing the historic imbalance in the leasehold system and further legislation will follow later in this Parliament.