Leasehold ban in England and Wales unlikely before next general election, minister says

A ban on new leasehold properties in England and Wales is unlikely to come into force until after the next election, the housing minister has said, as he defended the government’s piecemeal attempts to dismantle the system.The long-promised end would take years to “switch on”, Matthew Pennycook said, even though the ban of leaseholds on new houses was passed in 2024 and the government intends to pass one on new flats soon.Pennycook was giving a speech defending the government’s approach to bringing a de facto end to the feudal-era system after years of complaints from leaseholders about crippling service charges and crumbling buildings. He said the process needed to be rolled out slowly to avoid undermining housing supply and falling into legal pitfalls.“I think it’s highly likely that we don’t switch on the ban in this parliament,” he told reporters afterwards. “It’s really complex, and so what we really want to do on all of these fronts is have all the primary legislation that we need to end leasehold in place … but switching on the ban involves some really quite complex trade-offs with housing supply.”Referring to the government consultation on the issue, he added: “What we’re trying to get through this consultation is: what’s the commencement date where we’ve got everyone lined up in a way that the transition is going to be really smooth? That’s our objective.”Pennycook has promised to end the leasehold system since he was in opposition, telling the Guardian last year he intended to bring it to an end before the next election.As part of its overall package of reforms, the government is planning to ban the sale of new leasehold homes, cap ground rents, encourage residents to convert their existing leasehold homes to commonhold, which allows flat owners to own and manage their buildings jointly, and bring in measures to boost shared ownership schemes.Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, has accused the government of U-turning on its election pledge to end leasehold, putting the issue at the heart of his local election campaign.Pennycook told an audience in London that bringing an immediate end to the system, which is almost unique to this country, was impossible.“Those advocating for such an approach cannot answer how it would be lawful, how the impact on the mortgage market would be managed, how it would even be feasible for the land registry to delete millions of leasehold and freehold titles and replace them with commonhold ones overnight,” he said.“While our detractors will continue to cry betrayal, and opportunistic populist parties will continue to try to sell false promises to hard-pressed leaseholders across the country, we will continue with the hard graft of doing what is necessary to bring the system to an orderly end in this parliament.”Harry Scoffin, the founder of the campaign group Free Leaseholders, said: “With developers resorting to free furniture and two-year service charge holidays to lure people into buying their new leasehold flats, foot-dragging is only going to worsen the housing crisis.”