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Uncertain landscapes

25 October 2024 / Shabnam Ali-Khan
Issue: 8091 / Categories: Opinion , Property , Leasehold , Landlord&tenant
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What can be expected from the Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill? Shabnam Ali-Khan sets out the knowns & unknowns

Following the rushed Royal Assent of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, further controversy has arisen. In the King’s Speech on 17 July, the new Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill was announced, but the full details of the Bill have yet to be released. We can expect more information on this in the near future.

Five key areas

The current guidance highlights five key areas the Bill will address. We explore each of these in detail below.

First, it enacts remaining Law Commission recommendations to strengthen leaseholders’ rights to extend their lease, buy their freehold, and take over management of their building. The 2024 Act addresses most of the Law Commission’s recommendations on lease extensions and freehold purchases. These include offering a 990-year lease instead of the current 90 years, removing the two-year ownership requirement for flat lease extensions, and extending the right to acquire freeholds in buildings where the commercial area makes

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NEWS
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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