Wow.
Something is happening in our politics.
From Zack Polanski on the left to Guido Fawkes on the right, there’s growing agreement: leasehold must be abolished.
Free the land. Free the people.
So why are The Labour Party siding with the offshore property mafia?”
Harry Scoffin
The government is praising itself for getting Leasehold reforms over the line. It has in fact missed out on provisions it promised to enact in the Labour Manifesto and in the King’s Speech…
- Manifesto: “We will enact the package of Law Commission proposals on leasehold enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold.“
- King’s Speech: “enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations to bolster leaseholders’ fundamental rights to extend their lease and buy their freehold and take over the freeholders building management functions.”
These recommendations on “enfranchisement” would make it cheaper for leaseholders to buy out freeholders and ones on “Right to Manage” would empower flat-owners to control service charges without having to buy the freehold. These are missing from the draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill…
Suddenly when asked about it yesterday housing minister Matthew Pennycook – who has led on the bill – said:
“As for the other recommendations made in the three reports from the Law Commission, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 implemented a significant number of the Law Commission’s enfranchisement recommendations, a small number of its right-to-manage recommendations, and none of its recommendations on commonhold. We cannot do everything in this Bill… but we are committed to enacting those remaining recommendations relating to leasehold enfranchisement and other things over the course of the Parliament.”
Those remaining elements have been long-grassed. Pennycook has at the same time attacked the Tories for only adopting some of the Law Commission’s recommendations in the previous government. Glass houses…
It is very notable that the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, a charity supposedly representing the interests of leaseholders, is amplifying government propaganda,
https://www.leaseholdknowledge.com/pennycook-promises-to-end-leasehold-this-parliament while its “sister” organisation, the National Leasehold Campaign, is telling users that they must not make “political posts” and is blocking people who criticise either the government or LKP/NLC.
I have personally been blocked from the NLC Facebook group, to which I have contributed over several years — I was not even given a reason. I know that many others have experienced the same.
LKP and NLC seem content with the current reforms, even though they are a long way from what labour promised. The vast majority of leaseholders however are now realising the scale of the betrayal and are rightly angry.
LKP and NLC seem to many to be a controlled opposition. Too close to government and in LKP’s case with a serious conflict of interest. Martin Boyd (LKP director) is also head of LEASE and is therefore in a civil service post in effect. LKP also acts as ‘secretariat’ to the all party parliamentary group (APPG) on leasehold reform.
LKP and NLC are totally out of step with the views of most leaseholders and are not accountable to leaseholders in any way – the policy positions of LKP and NLC are decided by themselves and do not result from any consultation with leaseholders.
In my view LKP also seem far too cosy with some developers, namely Berkeley Homes, and such is their desire to ‘big them up’ that they gave what I consider a misleading statement to parliament on 17th March 2026 when they said that Berkeley Homes ‘handed over’ control of Chelsea Bridge Wharf devlopment to the leaseholders (Right to Manage Company). In fact BH contested the RTM application and the previous one in 2012, which is a matter of public record. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67aa1f9f699d77bee01484a7/Chelsea_Bridge_Wharf_-_final_decision__28.1.25__V2.pdf
LKP’s account of what happened at Chelsea Bridge Wharf is factually incorrect in many other important respects – this is what actually happened
https://chelseabridgewharf.org.uk/2026/02/28/the-governments-consultation-on-the-leasehold-and-commonhold-reform-bill-a-response-from-leaseholders/
and it is not a tale of leaseholder empowerment and enlightemed developers as LKP would have us believe.
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