The ‘new’ forfeiture

• Fundamental changes to the legal ownership of land.
• Understanding commonhold.
• Remedies for financial breaches.
• Remedies for non-financial breaches.

Fundamental changes are coming to the legal ownership of land. In 2017, the government asked the Law Commission to: (i) review and report on leasehold enfranchisement, with the aim of making it ‘easier, quicker and most cost-effective’ for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold; and (ii) to recommend reforms ‘to reinvigorate commonhold as a workable alternative to leasehold for existing and new homes’. True to form, the Law Commission undertook a forensic and detailed analysis into these issues and produced three reports on residential leasehold and commonhold reform in July 2020.

In January 2021, the government announced that leaseholders will, inter alia, be given the right to extend their lease by a maximum term of 990 years at zero ground rent. This is said to be the first part of ‘major’ two-part legislation to implement leasehold