The government has failed to respond to a parliamentary committee’s report on leasehold reform, citing the upheaval caused by Keir Starmer’s resignation as Prime Minister. Housing Secretary Matthew Pennycook wrote to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee confirming that the 27 July deadline would not be met.
The delay means millions of leaseholders across England and Wales will wait at least until autumn for any clarity on the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, legislation that has been promised, in various forms, by three successive governments.
The draft bill, scrutinised by the HCLG Committee in a report published in May, aims to give leaseholders greater control over their homes. The committee concluded that the proposed legislation was broadly positive but said reforms needed to “happen faster and go further.”
At its core, the bill would tackle ground rents on existing leases, a long-standing grievance for homeowners who bought leasehold properties only to discover that escalating ground rents could erode their property’s value and saleability. Some leasehold houses in England have ground rents that double every decade, a practice that has made certain properties effectively unmortgageable.
The bill would also make it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy the freehold of their building, and give residents more power over how their building is managed.
Florence Eshalomi MP, chair of the HCLG Committee, didn’t mince words. “Millions of leaseholders have been waiting for too long for successive governments to tackle the unfair leasehold system, cap ground rents, and put homeowners in control of the management of their buildings,” she said.
She urged the incoming Prime Minister to commit to introducing the final bill in autumn 2026 “so this will be the Parliament that finally tackles the long-standing inequities of leasehold.”
The frustration is understandable. The Conservatives promised leasehold reform before the 2024 election. Labour inherited that commitment and produced a draft bill. Now a leadership transition has stalled the process further, and summer recess, running from 17 July to 31 August, means nothing will happen until September at the earliest.
Leasehold might sound like a London and city-centre problem, but it affects homeowners across Norfolk and Suffolk too. New-build developments in Norwich, Great Yarmouth, and King’s Lynn have included leasehold houses, and retirement properties throughout the region are overwhelmingly sold on leasehold terms with service charges and ground rents attached.
For those owners, the bill isn’t abstract policy. It’s the difference between a ground rent that stays manageable and one that spirals. It determines whether extending a lease costs thousands or tens of thousands. And it affects the saleability of their home, because mortgage lenders increasingly refuse to lend on properties with short leases or punitive ground rent clauses.
The issue extends beyond flats. Leasehold houses, once rare outside the north west, were sold widely by volume housebuilders across East Anglia during the 2010s building boom. Buyers who assumed freehold ownership discovered too late that their developer had retained the freehold and attached escalating charges. The draft bill aims to end this practice for new builds, but the question of what happens to existing leaseholders is where the political arguments have stalled repeatedly.
The Housing Secretary attempted to reassure leaseholders despite the delay. The government remained “acutely aware of the need to act urgently to provide relief to leaseholders and homeowners on freehold estates currently suffering as a result of unfair and unreasonable practices,” he wrote, adding that the government was “committed to honouring its manifesto commitments in full.”
He said he hoped a response would come soon after summer recess, “with a substantive bill introduced to Parliament soon after.” The new administration, once confirmed, would set the timetable.
For anyone selling a leasehold property in Norfolk or Suffolk right now, the uncertainty creates a specific challenge. Buyers and their solicitors will ask about ground rent terms and lease length. Properties with fewer than 80 years remaining on the lease face significantly higher extension costs under the current rules, and that threshold creeps closer every year the reforms are delayed.
The Ivybridge Collection’s property market reports help sellers understand how lease terms and local market conditions interact, particularly in areas where new-build leasehold estates have become common.
All eyes now turn to the incoming Prime Minister. The HCLG Committee has made its position clear: the final bill should be introduced in autumn 2026. Whether that happens depends on how quickly the new leadership settles and whether housing reform survives the inevitable reshuffling of political priorities.
MPs from across the political spectrum spoke in a recent House of Commons debate to stress the urgency of action. The cross-party consensus is rare in housing policy, which makes the continued delay all the more galling for those affected.
Three governments have won mandates to fix leasehold. None has delivered. For the millions of homeowners caught in the system, another delay, however brief, is another reminder that the promise of reform moves slower than the ground rent demands dropping through their letterbox.
