Leaseholders are homeowners chained to landlords by a quirk of English property law rooted in feudalism. Service charges imposed by these freeloaders can spiral, leaving the leaseholder’s home unmortgageable and unsellable.

This is a warning to renters aspiring to homeownership: do not be seduced by falling prices, as you’ll end up in bondage to a far more powerful landlord. Pennycook and Labour have confirmed that leasehold homes will remain financial liabilities for years more.

Labour won the general election on a manifesto promise to “act where the Conservatives have failed and finally bring the feudal leasehold system to an end”.

With hotly-contested local elections imminent, Labour has squandered its chance to claw back trust by activating provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which sits rusting.

Instead of action, the minister offered wordplay and deflection.

The minister scolded leaseholders anxious about the pace of change: “To those who argue we are dragging our feet… you are simply not engaging seriously with the scope and ambition of the legislative and policy programme.”

As one of our supporters reacted:

“calling leaseholders ‘unserious’ like a 20-year-old TikToker is so crass when the tenure is destroying lives.”

The government overstates the complexity of reforms that a sovereign Parliament could already enact.

Instead of advancing enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, ways for leaseholders to “take back control”, Labour has omitted key Law Commission recommendations of six years ago from its new draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, breaking a King’s Speech promise.

Pennycook confirmed that these measures will remain under lock and key and wait for separate future legislation that may never materialise, given shrinking time before the next general election.

Harry Scoffin in top form speaks for leaseholders around the country

We heard again about alleged “flaws” in the 2024 Act, which the government have been cagey about. Supposedly the enfranchisement reforms in that legislation cannot be activated until they are remedied in new law. That means years more waiting.

But it’s a sly manipulation.

The government can commence now Section 29, a single-sentence measure that would permit leaseholders in buildings with shops or hotels to buy their freeholds by lifting the commercial floorspace limit from 25% to 50%.

990-year lease extensions are also ready-to-go, in Sections 33 and 34, replacing the current puny 50 and 90-year extensions for house and flat leaseholders. Neither policy is subject to the cartoony judicial review human rights lawfare of the rich freeholder lobby, nor do they require extensive secondary legislation or depend on any “fixes”.

Even the minister’s backyard is no longer safe.

On Thursday, in Greenwich, Labour is projected to fall from 52 seats to 23, with the Greens surging to 22 as the council slips to no overall control.

As Labour tries to bury bad news, leaseholders may bury them at the ballot box

Harry Scoffin is a housing campaigner and the founder of Free Leaseholders.