Mark Chick is Senior Partner at Bishop & Sewell and joint head of the Landlord & Tenant team. He is a director of ALEP, the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners.
Writing as I am now at the end of November 2025, it is hard to predict exactly what the new year has in store for leasehold. It is clear that the appeal by the freeholders in the case of Arc Time v Secretary of State means that the story is certainly not over as regards the next steps in the Human Rights Act challenge to the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.
How this will play out remains to be seen, but this should be taken in the context of Matthew Pennycook’s commitment which followed the original decision to “press ahead with implementing the 2004 Act.” We might assume that this may mean changes in relation to insurance and the service charge regime, with the enfranchisement elements probably waiting until much later in the year and quite possibly beyond.
We are probably looking at a further 9-12 months in the UK and then the possibility of further moves towards Strasbourg. Essentially ‘how long is a piece of string?’ The overall timeline could well be two to three years, or possibly more.
Personally, I don’t expect to see the major valuation changes in enfranchisement coming into effect during 2026.
What I do expect to see is the draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill. Which by the time you are reading this may well already be out and in the public domain.
If we haven’t had the draft bill by the end of the year, then I fully expect publication of the full detail in the very early part of 2026 and I expect the early part of the new year to be full of timetabling for the scrutiny of this proposed legislation. From an ALEP perspective, I – and others – will be looking forward to putting forward comments and assisting in the progress of this bill.
What else might be in this bill? I expect perhaps a ban on forfeiture and potentially some moves around ground rent. Although, perhaps if the ‘control of unreasonable ground rents’ (a manifesto pledge) is seen as being at risk of Human Rights scrutiny then perhaps this will feature in a separate piece of legislation. It might even be that the valuation reforms in LAFRA will be looked at again in a different way, perhaps by some amending legislation, and with a view to try to tie these points up together and avoid this derailing progress in relation to commonhold, which does have the opportunity to be a real ‘game changer.’
I said in a recent response to MHCLG that I felt that if properly implemented (most likely for new build developments first) that commonhold will be the biggest shake up in land tenure in England and Wales for over 200 years. I really do believe that handled properly that this can and will change the face of property ownership in shared structures for the better, provided that management issues are addressed from the start.
Other aspects of wider reforms and legislation will also have an effect during 2026. Elements of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 will be implemented next year, including the introduction of the new tenancy regime commencing in May 2026, and further on in the year the introduction of the new database of Landlords and the establishment of the Landlords’ Ombudsman, providing a dispute resolution service to avoid costly court proceedings.
As seems to usually be the case with Leasehold Reform, the future is difficult to predict, even looking just twelve months ahead. I do believe that, despite the freeholders’ appeal, implementation of the other aspects of LAFRA will continue in 2026. I also think that some of the details of the Act may start to have unintended consequences. For example, we may eventually see that reforms to building insurance commissions and the service charge demands regime could well favour larger enterprises with lower cost bases. This may lead to consolidation in the managing agent sector, resulting in a reduced market and price rises, which is certainly not what was intended.
We will also have to see how the planned implementation of commonhold affects housing supply if indeed, it does at all. I suspect that 2026 will be a year of getting ready for implementation and will therefore see a focus on education and training for professionals and consumers in readiness for these changes.
These changes, together with the changes of emphasis brought about by the Renters’ Rights Act, will mean renewed work pressures for the tribunal service. I think we can expect to see a flurry of cases, as we have with the Building Safety Act, as the details of new legislation (once it is in force) are worked through. One thing is certain; the only constant is change and 2026 is certainly likely to see some major changes in the property space.
