Leasehold reform is in the headlines — here's what you can actually do today

Leasehold reform is having its moment. The King’s Speech in May 2026 confirmed the government’s intention to bring forward a Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, building on the draft published earlier in the year. The headlines talk of “ending the feudal leasehold system,” capping ground rents, and making commonhold the default for new flats. If you own a leasehold flat, it’s natural to feel a flicker of hope — and then a very reasonable question: what does any of this mean for me, right now?

The honest answer is worth understanding clearly, because there’s a gap between the headlines and your day-to-day reality — and there’s something you can do about it that doesn’t depend on waiting for Parliament.

The big reforms are coming — but slowly, and not all guaranteed

It’s worth being clear-eyed rather than swept up. The flagship changes — the ground rent cap, and commonhold replacing leasehold — are still proposals working their way through the legislative process, not law you can rely on today. The most commonly cited timelines put major elements years away, and parts of the earlier 2024 Act are even subject to an ongoing legal challenge that won’t be resolved until late 2026 at the earliest. Reform is genuinely moving, and the direction of travel is real — but “coming in the next few years, probably, in phases” is the accurate picture, not “fixed next month.”

For existing leaseholders, that matters. You could wait and see how it all unfolds. Or you could look at what’s alreadyavailable — because one of the most powerful tools for taking control of your building has been law since 2002, and was actually widened just last year.

The thing you can use today: Right to Manage

Right to Manage (RTM) lets qualifying leaseholders take over the management of their building — repairs, maintenance, insurance, and the service charge budget — from the freeholder or their managing agent. You don’t buy the freehold, you don’t prove anyone did anything wrong, and you don’t need the freeholder’s consent. It applies in England and Wales, and it’s available now, not in some future session of Parliament. New to it? Here’s a fuller, plain-English guide to how Right to Manage works and what it really costs.

What’s more, the rules recently moved in leaseholders’ favour. Since March 2025, the limit on non-residential floor space in a building rose from 25% to 50% — meaning a large number of mixed-use blocks (those with a shop or office on the ground floor) that were previously shut out now qualify. And in most cases, RTM companies are no longer on the hook for the freeholder’s legal costs of a claim. If you’d looked at RTM before and been turned away, it’s genuinely worth another look.

Why this is the moment to act, not just watch

Here’s the thing the headlines miss: even the future reforms are fundamentally about giving leaseholders control of their own buildings. That’s the whole point of commonhold. But RTM already offers a version of that control — today, under existing law, without waiting for a Bill that’s still being debated.

There’s a quiet irony worth noting, too. Even under the future commonhold system, buildings will still need to be managed— someone has to organise the repairs, hold the insurance, keep the accounts, and stay on top of compliance. Reform changes who owns the right to make those decisions; it doesn’t make the work disappear. So whether you take control via RTM now or commonhold later, the practical question is the same: how do you actually run a building well, without simply handing it all back to an expensive managing agent?

That’s the real opportunity in this moment. The political will is finally behind leaseholders. The tools already exist. What’s been missing is a practical, affordable way for ordinary residents to exercise the control the law gives them — without it becoming a second job.

Reform proposals and timelines described here are accurate as of mid-2026 and may change as the Bill progresses.