We have been wondering when the next phase of leasehold reform will be coming ….

Well now we have some news.

In a carefully worded letter from the Minister Lord Greenhalgh addressed to me in my ALEP capacity, he states that Government intends to press ahead with the plans previously announced to ban marriage value and to ‘simplify’ the basis of the valuation calculations (including the introduction of an online calculator) in the next session of this Parliament.

I take this to mean that legislation will be tabled to do this in the next and final session of this Parliament in the run up to the next (scheduled) election in May 2024.

These proposals also include the previously stated promise to increase the length of a statutory lease extension to 990 years. Of these proposals the scope for valuation reform is going to be contentious, proposing as it does a shift of values from freeholders to leaseholders. The letter anticipates the prospect of a Human Rights Act challenge, and I wouldn’t be the first commentator to suggest that this might well be the case, given that the options given by government to the Law Commission on this topic were the most political terms of reference they had ever received.

But there we have it, a timetable at last as to when the proposals first announced on 7th January 2021 are to be the subject of some draft legislation.

Mark Chick

27th June 2022