This week Labour has published its draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill.

For too long, leaseholders and homeowners with unadopted estates have paid through the roof for
substandard service from unscrupulous managing agents and freeholders.

Every year, homeowners pay £600 million to freeholders. And in 2024, service charges reached an
average of £2,300 a year, increasing well above inflation.

Labour’s Bill will take direct action on the cost-of-living crisis for leaseholders.

The Government is capping ground rent at £250 a year, and moving to a peppercorn after 40 years.

The legislation also establishes commonhold as a default tenure, bans new leasehold flats, and creates
a route for leaseholders who want to transition to commonhold to do so.

More plans are also in the works to make it easier for leaseholders to enfranchise, and to ensure that
managing agents and freeholders are held to account for poor practice.

Every week I see in my constituency inbox the costs which homeowners are forced to pay for
substandard service. Working people deserve managing agents and freeholders who work for them,
and that is exactly what Labour’s Bill will achieve