Our January 2025 summary of the latest developments in Property law and practice is as follows:

The Law Commission has published a consultation paper on Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. This is the first of two consultation papers on the 1954 Act. This first consultation exercise deals with the fundamental question of whether business tenants should have security of tenure (an automatic right to renew a lease, in certain circumstances) and, if so, how it should operate. The paper suggests four possible scenarios, namely either mandatory security of tenure, no security of tenure at all, a ‘contracting in’ regime or the continuance of the contracting out regime. Once the question of ‘best route forward’ is addressed will there be a second consultation exercise on how the Act should be reformed. Comments are requested by 19 February 2025.

The Government has given an indication of its intentions regarding the implementation of provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. The Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has said that the Government will “take the time necessary to ensure the reforms we pass are fit for purpose” and that “a small number of specific but serious flaws which would prevent certain provisions from operating as intended” would need to be rectified via primary legislation.

The main announcements in the Minister’s statement were plans to:

• remove the current two-year qualifying period that tenants need to satisfy before an enfranchisement or lease extension claim can be made;
• limit a landlord’s ability to pass on the costs of arranging or managing buildings insurance;
• remove the threat of forfeiture as a means of ensuring compliance with the terms of a residential lease;
• reform to the residential service charge consultation process under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and create rights for leaseholders to more easily challenge unreasonable service charges;
• review estate management charges for residential freeholders on private and mixed-tenure housing estates; and
• reinvigorate commonhold to make it the default tenure by the end of the parliament in place of new leasehold flats.