Leasehold: Your Rights as a Leaseholder

Data last checked on 8 October 2026.

Checked against GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk. Edited by Steven Butler.

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You only own a leasehold property for a fixed period of time. Your lease, a legal agreement with the landlord (sometimes known as the freeholder), tells you how many years you will own the property, and ownership returns to the landlord when the lease comes to an end. Around 5 million homes in England and Wales are leasehold, primarily flats.

Key points

✓Leasehold means you own a right to occupy your property for a set time, but not the land it sits on.
✓When there are 80 years or less remaining on your lease, the cost of extending it increases significantly.
✓If your lease was granted on or after 30 June 2022, you usually cannot be charged anything more than a peppercorn ground rent, which has a value of zero.
✓A landlord who charges more than a peppercorn rent on a regulated lease can face a financial penalty of between £500 and £30,000.
✓If you pay a service charge, you can ask for a summary showing how it is worked out and what it is spent on, and see the paperwork behind it.

What leasehold means

Your lease tells you what conditions you have agreed, for example whether you need permission to make alterations, how much you will have to pay to maintain the property, and whether you or your landlord is responsible for repairs and for dealing with noisy neighbours. You might be taken to court and ordered to pay for any damage if you do not follow the conditions of the lease. The court may also take away your lease.

As a leaseholder you have the right to:

Yes: Get information about service charges or insurance
Yes: Know the landlord's (freeholder's) name and address
Yes: Be consulted about certain maintenance and running costs
Yes: Challenge certain charges under some circumstances

Most flats are leasehold. Houses can be leasehold too, and usually are if they are bought through a shared ownership scheme. The government will implement the ban on new leasehold houses in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, and wants it to work with a ban on new leasehold flats so that, once both are in effect, selling new leasehold homes will be prohibited in most circumstances.

From 27 December 2025, long leases (over 21 years) no longer count as assured tenancies, no matter how high the ground rent is. This guide covers England and Wales. There are different rules and steps to buying the freehold of your home in Northern Ireland.

Ground rent

Ground rent is a payment to your landlord that might be included in your lease. Your landlord does not have to provide a service in return.

If your lease was granted before 30 June 2022:

You only have to pay ground rent once your landlord has sent you a formal, written demand for it
Your landlord can recover unpaid ground rent going back 6 years, and can ask you for the full amount in one go
Your landlord can only increase the ground rent if you agree to the increase or the lease says this can happen

If your lease was granted on or after 30 June 2022, you usually cannot be charged anything more than a peppercorn ground rent. The value of this is zero so you will not have to pay anything, but it forms a legally binding contract with your landlord. If you bought a lease from another leaseholder on or after 30 June 2022, you will still have to pay ground rent to your landlord if this is in your lease. The changes only apply to new leases granted on or after 30 June 2022.

Under section 9 of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, an enforcement authority can impose a financial penalty of not less than £500 and not more than £30,000 on a person it is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt has breached the ban in section 3(1). The permitted rent on a regulated lease is a peppercorn rent.

The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill would cap existing ground rents at £250 a year, changing to a peppercorn after 40 years. This is a cap on the maximum amount that can be charged and will not increase anyone's ground rent.

Service charges

Your lease sets out the way the service charge is organised and what can be charged. Under section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, relevant costs count towards a service charge only to the extent that they are reasonably incurred, and where they are incurred on services or works, only if the services or works are of a reasonable standard.

If you pay a service charge, you have the right to:

Ask for a summary showing how the charge is worked out and what it is spent on
See any paperwork supporting the summary, such as receipts
Ask for a summary of the building insurance policy
Challenge the cost of the insurance through a tribunal if you think it is unreasonable

Your landlord must give you the summary and the supporting paperwork. It is a criminal offence if they do not. Your landlord will usually be responsible for insurance of the building (not the contents), and this will be part of your service charge. Service charge monies must be held in trust at a regulated financial institution.

You might have to pay into a fund to help cover any unexpected maintenance or repairs. There are rules about how landlords must manage these funds. You will not usually be able to get back any money you pay into them, for example if you move house.

You may be able to apply to a tribunal if you pay a charge and you think it is unreasonable, think the standard of work it relates to is unsatisfactory, or do not think you should be paying it at all. That is a tribunal in England, or the Leasehold Valuation Tribunals in Wales.

You cannot apply to the tribunal if:

No: You have agreed to pay the charge
No: The dispute is already being dealt with, for example by the court
No: You pay a fixed charge

The government will bring the transparency measures in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 into force as quickly as possible, including standardised service charge demand forms, annual reporting requirements for landlords and managing agents, enhanced rights to obtain information, and improved insurance policy information given proactively to leaseholders.

Major works and Section 20

You have the right to be consulted about charges for running or maintaining the building if you have to pay more than £250 for planned work, or more than £100 per year for work and services lasting more than 12 months. The steps your landlord must follow are known as a Section 20 consultation. There is a limit on how much you have to pay if you have not been consulted properly.

In England, for qualifying works where public notice is not required, the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003 set these steps:

Notice of intention

The landlord must give notice in writing of their intention to carry out the works to each tenant and any recognised tenants' association. The notice must describe the works in general terms, state why the landlord thinks they are necessary, invite observations and invite you to propose the name of a person from whom the landlord should try to obtain an estimate. The relevant period for replying is 30 days beginning with the date of the notice. The landlord must have regard to the observations they receive.

Estimates

The landlord must obtain estimates, give each tenant free of charge a statement setting out the amount of at least two of them, and make all the estimates available for inspection. At least one estimate must come from a person wholly unconnected with the landlord. The landlord must invite your written observations on the estimates.

Award of the contract

Within 21 days of entering into the contract, the landlord must give each tenant notice in writing of their reasons for awarding it, or say where a statement of those reasons can be inspected. This does not apply where the contract is with a nominated person or the person who submitted the lowest estimate.

Under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, tenants' contributions are limited unless the consultation requirements have been complied with or dispensed with by the tribunal. In England, regulation 6 of the 2003 Regulations sets the amount at which consultation applies: a contribution of more than £250 for any tenant.

Extending your lease

You can ask the landlord to extend your lease at any time. When there are 80 years or less remaining on your lease, the cost of extending it increases significantly. You might be able to extend your lease by 90 years on a flat, or 50 years on a house, if you qualify.

You no longer need to own a leasehold property for two years before taking action. Claims for a lease extension or freehold purchase can start immediately after buying a home, a change that has been live since January 2025.

Under Schedule 13 to the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, where the unexpired term of the tenant's existing lease exceeds eighty years the marriage value is taken to be nil. The Leasehold Advisory Service's lease extension calculator gives you a guide to the costs of extending the lease of a flat.

The reforms to the amended enfranchisement scheme, for purchasing a freehold or extending a lease, require the fixing of technical flaws in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 before they can be implemented. The government intends to make these changes through primary legislation. A consultation on valuation rates, the rates used to work out the price paid for freehold purchases, lease extensions and buying out ground rent, is planned for 2026.

You can ask the landlord to sell you the freehold at any time. For a flat you will need to buy a share of the freehold, and for a house you may have the right to buy it. Landlords who want to sell the freehold of a building containing flats usually have to offer the leaseholders the first chance to buy it.

Right to Manage (RTM)

The Right to Manage lets you and the other leaseholders take over certain management responsibilities from the landlord without having to prove bad management. You can manage the building yourselves or pay a managing agent to do it.

Yes: The membership of the RTM company must include qualifying tenants of at least one-half of the flats in the building
Yes: At least two-thirds of the flats in the building must be held by qualifying tenants, and a lease counts as a long lease if it was granted for a term of years certain exceeding 21 years
Yes: Buildings with flats and shops or offices can use the Right to Manage if the non-residential floor area is up to 50% of the building, up from 25% since March 2025
Yes: In most circumstances you no longer have to pay the freeholder's legal fees when making an RTM claim

Challenging your freeholder

Talk to your landlord and try mediation

You might be able to negotiate a settlement using mediation, in which an impartial professional helps both sides work out an agreement. It is confidential and usually quicker and cheaper than going to court.

Get free advice from LEASE

The Leasehold Advisory Service gives free advice on issues like service charges, extending your lease and buying the freehold. It is a free, independent advice service funded by the government.

Apply to a tribunal

You can apply to a tribunal if you are in a dispute with your landlord about, for example, service or administration charges, the cost of building insurance, the appointment of a manager, the Right to Manage, the breach of a lease, varying a lease, recognising a tenants' association, buying the freehold or extending the lease.

Ask a tribunal to appoint a new manager

You must prove bad management, for example that you have to pay unreasonable service charges or the landlord has not complied with an approved code of management practice. You can only apply if you have sent the landlord a Section 22 notice, which gives them a chance to fix the problems.

Complain to an ombudsman or redress scheme

The Public Service Ombudsman gives independent dispute resolution for housing-related complaints where the freeholder is a registered housing provider, for instance a council or housing association. If you have a complaint about your managing agent that cannot be resolved directly, you can complain to a redress scheme.

Where to go next

Frequently asked questions

My lease has 70 years left, is that a problem?

When there are 80 years or less remaining on your lease, the cost of extending it increases significantly. You can ask the landlord to extend your lease at any time. You might be able to extend your lease by 90 years on a flat, or 50 years on a house, if you qualify.

Can my freeholder increase the service charge by any amount?

No. Under section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, relevant costs count towards a service charge only to the extent that they are reasonably incurred, and works or services only if they are of a reasonable standard. You may be able to apply to a tribunal if you think a charge is unreasonable.

My freeholder is threatening forfeiture, what does that mean?

It is very rare that a landlord can end the lease and evict you. Forfeiture proceedings need a formal written notice and the court's permission. For a service charge or administration charge, a landlord may not forfeit unless a tribunal or court has finally determined that the amount is payable, or you have admitted that it is. The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill would abolish the rules that mean a leaseholder can lose their home over minor breaches of the lease, and replace them with a proportionate enforcement regime. In England, a landlord under a long lease of a dwelling may not forfeit for unpaid rent, service charges or administration charges unless the unpaid amount exceeds £350 or includes an amount outstanding for more than three years.

Does the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 apply to me now?

The Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. The government is implementing it as quickly as possible through an extensive programme of secondary legislation. The two year ownership requirement for lease extensions and freehold purchases has gone since January 2025. The reforms to the enfranchisement scheme need technical flaws fixed through primary legislation before they can be implemented.

What happens when a leasehold runs out?

Ownership of the property returns to the landlord when the lease comes to an end. If your lease expires, this does not mean you automatically have to leave the property, but you will have less rights and legal protections. Get urgent advice if your lease is about to run out.

Can I rent out my leasehold flat?

Your lease tells you what conditions you have agreed, so check it before you let the flat. Where a lease contains a covenant against underletting without licence or consent, the law treats it as subject to a proviso that consent is not to be unreasonably withheld, though the landlord can require payment of a reasonable sum for legal or other expenses.

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Know Your Rights UK. "Leasehold: Your Rights as a Leaseholder." Know Your Rights UK, https://www.knowyourrightsuk.com/housing/leasehold