Enfranchisement, explained: extending your lease or buying your freehold

"Enfranchisement" is the legal word for a leaseholder's statutory right to buy a bigger stake in their own home: a longer lease, the freehold, or freedom from ground rent. The rights come from two older Acts, the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 for houses and the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 mainly for flats, and they are being rewritten by the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (GOV.UK valuation rates consultation).

Most of the headline changes are law on paper but not yet in force. That gap is the single most important thing to understand before you spend money on a claim.

The four rights, in plain English

• Extend the lease of your flat. You add years to your lease and your ground rent drops to a peppercorn (effectively zero).
• Extend the lease of your house, or buy its freehold. House leaseholders can either extend or buy the freehold outright.
• Buy the freehold of your block with your neighbours. This is "collective enfranchisement": qualifying flat owners club together, usually through a company, and become the freeholder.
• Buy out your ground rent without extending. A new right created by the 2024 Act for leases that already have at least 150 years left to run (GOV.UK).

How it works today

If you make a statutory claim now, the old rules still apply, with one important exception.

• Flats: a statutory extension adds 90 years to your remaining term, at a peppercorn ground rent (Property Tax Partners).
• Houses: a statutory extension adds 50 years (GOV.UK).
• Marriage value is payable once your lease has 80 years or fewer remaining. It is the extra value unlocked when the freeholder's and leaseholder's interests are "married" together, and it can add thousands to the price of a short lease (GOV.UK).
• You pay your freeholder's costs. Leaseholders still pay the freeholder's reasonable non-litigation costs, such as their solicitor and valuer, on a lease extension claim (Property Tax Partners).
• The two-year rule has gone. Since 31 January 2025 you no longer need to have owned your home for two years before making a claim. You can start on the day you complete (LEASE; SI 2025/57).
• Mixed-use blocks: a building still cannot be collectively enfranchised if more than 25% of its internal floor area (excluding common parts) is non-residential. The 2024 Act raises that to 50%, but the change is not yet in force (legislation.gov.uk, section 29).

What the 2024 Act will change

Sources: GOV.UK consultation; GOV.UK plain-English explainer; legislation.gov.uk.

The government says the costs change alone could save leaseholders "hundreds or even thousands of pounds" (GOV.UK). The 0.1% ground rent cap in the valuation does not apply to every lease: leases granted with no premium, or where a lower premium was genuinely traded for a higher rent, are carved out (GOV.UK). That is a close cousin of the argument now being fought over the wider £250 cap, which we cover in The one exemption that could keep your ground rent above £250.

Why none of this is live yet

As of September 2026, the 990-year term, the abolition of marriage value and the costs reform have no commencement date (Property Tax Partners). Three things have to happen first.

1. The rates must be set in regulations. The new valuation method cannot start until the government prescribes the deferment and capitalisation rates. That consultation has been extended and now closes at 11:59pm on 21 October 2026 (GOV.UK).
2. The cost exceptions must be fixed. A separate consultation on when leaseholders will still contribute to a freeholder's costs, and how much, closes at 11:59pm on 23 September 2026 and was not extended (GOV.UK).
3. Flaws in the 2024 Act must be corrected. The government says it cannot commence the enfranchisement provisions without fixing "a small number of specific flaws" through primary legislation, which it plans to do in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill (GOV.UK).

Hanging over all three is the freeholders' legal challenge. Six landowners, including Cadogan Estates and Grosvenor, argue the reforms breach their property rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (The Negotiator). The High Court dismissed the claim on all grounds on 24 October 2025, but the Court of Appeal has since granted permission to appeal on all grounds (Leasehold Knowledge Partnership). The government says it is defending the appeal while carrying on with implementation (GOV.UK).

The two rates that will set your price

Under the new Standard Valuation Method, the price is built from two parts (GOV.UK):

• Term value: what the freeholder's future ground rent is worth today, worked out using the capitalisation rate.
• Reversion value: what the freeholder's right to get the property back at the end of the lease is worth today, worked out using the deferment rate.

Add the two together and you have the premium. For a ground rent buy-out, only the term value counts.

The rule of thumb is simple: a higher rate means a lower price for the leaseholder; a lower rate means a higher price (LEASE). The sensitivity is real. In government modelling for a £250,000 flat with 80 years left, moving the deferment rate from 5% to 4% more than doubles the reversion element from £5,044 to £10,846, while 6% cuts it to £2,363 (Mortgage Solutions).

The options on the table are:

• Deferment rate: keep the 2007 Sportelli rates of 4.75% for houses and 5% for flats, update the Sportelli approach with newer evidence (which could push the rate up or down), or use a different method.
• Capitalisation rate: one rate for all ground rents, or separate rates for fixed, stepped and index-linked rents.

Whatever is chosen will apply nationally, to every leaseholder and every type of freeholder, with no scope to argue for a different rate in an individual case, and could stay in place for up to 10 years (LEASE; GOV.UK).

Extend now, or wait?

There is no single answer, and "wait for reform" should not be the default (Mortgage Solutions). A rough guide:

• Just over 80 years (say 82 to 85): extending now removes the risk of dropping below 80 and triggering marriage value while the timetable is uncertain. A 90-year extension already gives you 170-plus years.
• Between roughly 30 and 80 years: marriage value can be a large share of today's price, so there may be a rational reason to wait, but the new rates and start date are still unknown.
• Very short leases, or a sale or remortgage coming up: certainty may be worth more than a possible future saving. Short leases can become hard to mortgage, and a buyer or lender may not wait with you.

Every lease is different in length, ground rent and how that rent rises. Before deciding, run your numbers through the LEASE lease extension calculator and speak to LEASE, which gives free, independent advice (GOV.UK).

Have your say

The government is actively asking individual leaseholders, not just lawyers and surveyors, to respond. Useful things to tell it include your remaining lease length, how your ground rent is reviewed, whether one simple rate would be clearer, and how uncertainty has affected your own decisions (LEASE).

The consultation applies to England and Wales and closes at 11:59pm on 21 October 2026. Views can be submitted online.

Enfranchisement or right to manage?

Buying your freehold gives you ownership of the building; the right to manage gives you control of how it is run without buying anything. Right to manage has no purchase price, and a freeholder can no longer recover its costs on an uncontested claim since March 2025 (Property Tax Partners). For many blocks it is the faster first step while the enfranchisement reforms wait to be switched on.