Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024: What Is in Force

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024, but little of it applies to your building yet. Section 124 commenced the general provisions that day and four building safety and rentcharge sections two months later. Everything else needs commencement regulations, and by August 2026 three sets had been made, taking effect on 31 October 2024, 31 January 2025 and 3 March 2025. The service charge, insurance, estate management and valuation reforms directors are waiting for remain on the statute book but inactive.

What “in Force” Means for This Act

Passing an Act and commencing it are separate steps. Section 124(1) brought Part 9 into force at Royal Assent: interpretation, the regulation-making powers, extent, commencement and the short title. Section 124(2) commenced four sections at the end of two months, so on 24 July 2024. Section 124(3) leaves the rest to come into force on such day or days as the Secretary of State appoints by regulations.

An uncommenced section changes nothing: a tribunal cannot apply it and a landlord is not bound by it. The Act extends to England and Wales, and section 124(3) gives the power to appoint commencement days to the Secretary of State for the whole Act, so the dates below apply in Wales as well. What is split is the secondary legislation that follows: for the service charge measures the appropriate authority is the Secretary of State in relation to England and the Welsh Ministers in relation to Wales. The July 2026 government response says expressly that it covers implementation in England only, so buildings in Devon and Cornwall follow the England timetable.

What Is in Force Now

The table lists every provision commenced so far and the instrument that did it. Anything not listed is still awaiting regulations.

No further commencement regulations had been made when this was written in August 2026. Commencement No. 3 remains the most recent.

Right to Manage: What Changed on 3 March 2025

This is the part of the Act that has made the most practical difference so far, and the reason many blocks that could not previously claim the right to manage now can.

• Section 49 amends paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 6 to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, replacing the 25 per cent non-residential limit with 50%. A block with commercial space up to half the internal floor area can qualify.
• Section 50 inserts sections 87A and 87B into the 2002 Act: an RTM company and its members are not liable for costs incurred by anyone else because of a claim notice, except as those sections set out, and a lease or other arrangement saying otherwise has no effect. Section 87B lets the tribunal order costs against the company where the claim ceases and the company acted unreasonably in giving the notice or in not withdrawing it.
• Section 51 amends section 107 of the 2002 Act on enforcement of obligations, and section 52 stops first-instance High Court applications where jurisdiction sits with the tribunal.
• Section 64 was commenced only so far as it inserts section 20J of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 for right to manage: a landlord cannot treat its non-litigation costs of an RTM claim as relevant costs in a non-participating tenant’s service charge.

The equivalent change for collective enfranchisement is not in force. Section 29 would make the same 25 per cent to 50% change in section 4(1)(b) of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, but it awaits regulations. A mixed-use block may therefore qualify for the right to manage today and still fall outside collective enfranchisement.

Enfranchisement: Only the Qualifying Period Has Gone

Section 27 came into force on 31 January 2025. It removes the requirement in section 1(1)(b) of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 and the two-year qualifying tenant requirement in section 39 of the 1993 Act, so a claim can be started straight after completing a purchase. The same regulations modified the prescribed notice forms made under the 1967 Act in the meantime, omitting the references to the qualifying period until those forms are replaced.

Nothing else in Part 2 has been commenced: not section 33, which would extend the statutory lease extension term to 990 years in place of 50 years for houses and 90 for flats, not section 37 and its new method of calculating the price, not sections 38 and 39 on costs. Marriage value has not been abolished, and the valuation rules in the schedules are uncommenced.

Two consultations opened on 15 July 2026 and close on 23 September 2026: one on the deferment and capitalisation rates to be prescribed for enfranchisement claims, one on exceptions to the principle that each party bears its own non-litigation process costs. Until those rates are prescribed and the valuation provisions commenced, claims run under existing law.

Building Safety: The First Provisions to Take Effect

Part 8 amends the Building Safety Act 2022 and was commenced first. Sections 117 to 119 took effect on 24 July 2024: changes to Schedule 8 on recovering legal costs through the service charge, the repeal of section 125 of the 2022 Act, and a duty on an insolvency practitioner appointed in relation to an accountable person for a higher-risk or relevant building to notify the local authority and the fire and rescue authority.

Sections 114 to 116 followed on 31 October 2024. Section 114 adds a definition of “relevant steps” to section 120 of the 2022 Act: steps whose purpose is to prevent or reduce the likelihood of fire or collapse arising from a relevant defect, reduce its severity, or prevent harm to people. Sections 115 and 116 widen remediation orders and remediation contribution orders accordingly, and section 116 confirms a contribution order can cover relevant steps, expert reports and temporary accommodation on a decant.

What Is Still Waiting for Regulations

The larger part of the Act sits here. Part 1, sections 1 to 26, would ban the grant or assignment of new long residential leases of houses outside the permitted categories in Schedule 1. It is not commenced, so leasehold houses can still lawfully be granted.

Section 48 and Schedule 10 would give leaseholders a right to vary a lease so that the rent becomes a peppercorn without extending the term. That is not in force either, so the ground rent you pay is still governed by your lease.

Part 4, sections 53 to 71, is the block management chapter: fixed service charges brought into the regulated regime, notices of future demands, a prescribed service charge demand form, accounts and an annual report, a right to obtain information on request, limits on insurance costs and a duty to disclose insurance information, administration charge schedules, and the two-way litigation costs regime in sections 62 and 63. Section 67 would create leasehold sales information requests, replacing today’s unregulated market in management packs.

The government consulted on implementing Part 4 from 4 July to 26 September 2025 and responded on 15 July 2026. The package will be laid through a minimum of five statutory instruments, at least two affirmative, and leaseholders, shared owners and tenants of private registered providers will start to see changes during 2027. Private landlords get 12 months’ notice of the demand form and annual report duties, social landlords 24 months, and 12 months for the insurance measures. The future demand notice and the right to obtain information are to be commenced as soon as possible in 2027.

Part 5, sections 72 to 99, would regulate estate management charges on privately managed freehold estates; a consultation on implementing it ran from 18 December 2025 to 12 March 2026 and no response has been published. Part 6, sections 100 to 111, would let regulations require landlords and estate managers to belong to a redress scheme, backed by financial penalties. Section 112, the new meaning of “estate rentcharge”, is also uncommenced.

What Is Being Overtaken by the Draft Bill

Some of the 2024 Act may never be switched on in its current wording. A draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill was published on 27 January 2026, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee began pre-legislative scrutiny on 4 February 2026, and the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026 confirmed the Bill, including the capping of ground rents. As at late August 2026 the substantive Bill had not been introduced.

In a speech on 29 April 2026 the Housing Minister said the 2024 Act contains a small number of specific flaws which the government intends to rectify through the substantive Bill, described as around 260 clauses and 20 schedules. Capitalisation and deferment rates would be prescribed in advance of those fixes, so that a new valuation process removing marriage value and capping the treatment of ground rents at 0.1% of the freehold value could then be implemented swiftly. The valuation reforms are waiting on primary legislation as well as regulations.

The draft Bill goes further than the 2024 Act: capping ground rents at £250 a year and moving them to a peppercorn after 40 years, abolishing forfeiture and replacing it with a new lease enforcement scheme, banning leasehold for most new flats, repealing the harsher enforcement powers attached to estate rentcharges, and allowing commonhold conversion where at least 50% of qualifying leaseholders agree.

The Act has also been tested in court. In R (ARC Time Freehold Income Authorised Fund and others) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2025] EWHC 2751 (Admin), a Divisional Court on 24 October 2025 dismissed a challenge by freeholder investors to the ground rent cap in the valuation schedule, the removal of marriage value and the costs provisions in sections 38 and 39, brought under Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Minister said in April 2026 that the government would defend an appeal; no appeal judgment had been published when this article was written.

What a Director Should Do About It Now

Three practical points follow.

• Do not budget on the assumption that Part 4 is live. Demands, accounts and insurance disclosure still run under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 as it stands, and the prescribed forms exist only as consultation annexes.
• If your block has been told it is too commercial for the right to manage, check again. The limit has been 50% since 3 March 2025, and the RTM company no longer picks up the landlord’s costs of the claim unless the tribunal orders costs under the new section 87B because the claim was pursued unreasonably.
• If you are planning a lease extension or freehold purchase, the two-year wait has gone, but the price is still calculated under the old rules including marriage value. Whether to claim now or wait is a valuation question turning on the unexpired term and the ground rent in your lease.

If you are a director trying to work out which of these changes touches your building, the useful next step is usually a short review of the lease, the current demand and accounting cycle, and the systems that must produce the prescribed annual report and demand form once the 2027 measures are commenced. Plymouth Block Management is happy to go through that with directors across Devon, Cornwall and the wider South West, and you can contact the office to arrange it.

Common Questions

The questions directors ask most often about the status of the Act.

Sources

Everything above is taken from these, not from a summary of them:

1. Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 legislation.gov.uk
2. Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, section 124 legislation.gov.uk
3. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (Commencement No. 1) Regulations 2024 legislation.gov.uk
4. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 legislation.gov.uk
5. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (Commencement No. 3) Regulations 2025 legislation.gov.uk
6. Strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services: consultation and government response GOV.UK, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
7. Leasehold enfranchisement valuation rates GOV.UK
8. Enhanced protections for homeowners on freehold estates GOV.UK
9. Draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill GOV.UK
10. Housing Minister speech on Leasehold and Commonhold Reform, 29 April 2026 GOV.UK
11. The King’s Speech 2026 GOV.UK
12. R (ARC Time Freehold Income Authorised Fund and others) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2025] EWHC 2751 (Admin) Find Case Law, The National Archives
13. Government response to the strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services consultation GOV.UK, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
14. Leasehold enfranchisement process costs GOV.UK
15. Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, section 68 legislation.gov.uk
16. Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, section 50 legislation.gov.uk
17. Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, section 119 legislation.gov.uk

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