Reforms around Lease extension and freehold enfranchisement

The Government has recently reconfirmed its proposal to implement reforms in this regard in the current term of Parliament.

Reforming the Home Buying and Selling Process – Binding conditional contracts, Home Information Packs Mark II, digitisation and mandatory qualifications and code of conduct for Estate agents

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has recently published a roadmap setting out its proposals for reforming the residential home buying and selling process in England and Wales.

The stated aim is a familiar one: property transactions are often slow, expensive and uncertain. Buyers and sellers can spend considerable sums on surveys, legal fees and mortgage arrangements, only for a transaction to collapse shortly before exchange of contracts. The Government estimates that hundreds of thousands of transactions fall through each year, resulting in significant wasted costs and frustration.

A covenant to repair is not a covenant to modernise

The Upper Tribunal’s decision in Mountview Estates Plc v W8 Property Ltd [2026] UKUT 196 (LC) provides useful guidance on the condition in which a flat is to be valued when calculating the premium payable for a statutory lease extension.

The case concerned a flat which both parties’ valuers described as “uninhabitable”. The landlord argued that the valuation should nevertheless assume that the flat had been brought up to a clean, modern and readily marketable standard because the lease required the tenant to keep it in “good tenantable repair”.