Tag: 2024

The press release issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 4 July 2025.

Leaseholders to be better protected and more able to challenge excessive service charges to address cost of living concerns.

Millions of leaseholders will receive stronger rights, powers and protections to better challenge extortionate service charges thanks to major reforms to the feudal leasehold system.

Leaseholders are required to pay a service charge to cover the upkeep of shared areas in their building, however in too many cases they are left facing very unclear and unaffordable fees.

By switching on measures in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, almost five million leaseholders in England and Wales will receive the transparency they need to hold their landlords to account and easily challenge these costs.

Leaseholders will receive standardised service charge documentation, which will spell out clear and detailed information about how their service charges are calculated and spent.

This will make it easier for them to challenge unreasonable bills and potentially save money where expenses are unjustified, with further reforms to stop them having to automatically pay for landlords’ litigation costs even where they have won their case.

Housing and Planning Minister, Matthew Pennycook said:

“The cost of living remains a pressing concern for leaseholders and many are struggling financially as a result of high and rising service charges, and other opaque and excessive leasehold costs.

“This bold package of reforms will arm leaseholders with greater rights and protections and empower them to challenge poor practice and unreasonable charges and fees – driving up leaseholder living standards as we work to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end as part of our Plan for Change.”

RICS Chief Executive, Justin Young, said:

“Today’s announcement is an important step forward in raising standards and improving transparency in the leasehold sector. Accountability and professionalism in property management is essential to give leaseholders confidence.

“Mandatory qualifications for managing agents will help to achieve this.

“We fully support the Government’s ambition to deliver meaningful, proportionate reform that has lasting benefit for consumers. The consultation recognises that professional bodies play a critical role in delivering trust and confidence. RICS’ work seeks to ensure the highest level of professionalism across our membership – and around 30% of leasehold properties are managed by an RICS Regulated Firm.

“Qualifications alone, however, are only part of the solution. RICS looks forward to working with MHCLG to achieve their vision, drawing on our deep regulatory experience and existing infrastructure.”

The Property Institute Chief Executive, Andrew Bulmer, said:

“We welcome this wide-reaching consultation which seeks to improve the lives of residents in shared buildings.

“Measures to improve the transparency of service charges will empower residents with useful information on costs, while mandatory qualifications for property managers are vital to improve standards and ensure residents get the level of service they deserve.

“The Property Institute looks forward to playing our part in this essential mission towards a fairer, better and more transparent residential property sector.”

Demands for service charges are currently only required by law to include a limited amount of details, which can leave leaseholders in the dark over what services or works make up their bill.

This can leave leaseholders at risk of being overcharged for poor quality work, or out of pocket for work that has not been carried out in some of the worst cases, on top of existing cost of living pressures.

The government is today (Friday) pushing ahead to implement these reforms and is consulting over the best way forward to ensure they are robust, workable and protect leaseholders effectively.

Queries about service charges accounted for one in three of all enquiries to the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) last year, showing the need for the government to act and drive-up transparency.

Further reforms – in addition to measures in the Act – will see the Section 20 ‘major works’ process improved to ensure leaseholders are not hit by one-off, unexpected and very large bills with little or no notice as is the case currently. LEASE will shortly be publishing an insight report into the challenges currently experienced by leaseholders going through this process.

Other measures will give leaseholders the power to demand a switch or veto a landlord’s choice of managing agent and introduce mandatory qualifications for the role to stamp out bad practice in line with Lord Best’s 2019 recommendations. This reform will ensure all managing agents have the knowledge and skills they need to do their jobs effectively, and put an end to leaseholders and residential freeholders suffering abuse and poor service.

These reforms will help drive up living standards in our Plan for Change and complement work to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end and make commonhold the default for new flats, ahead of publication of a draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill later this year.

Key points being consulted on:

• Better service charge transparency, including new standardised service charge demand forms, annual reports, service charge accounts and administration charges
• Improving buildings insurance transparency, including what information should be provided to leaseholders, so they have assurance they are getting fair value and are better able to challenge any unreasonable insurance charges
• Rebalancing the litigation costs regime and removing barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlord
• Reforming the section 20 ‘major works’ procedure that leaseholders must go through when they face large bills for such works
• Considering the case for greater protections for leaseholders paying fixed service charges, protections for client money, or improvements to the process for appointing a manager in cases of serious management failure
• Opportunities to encourage the provision of information and services digitally to be more accessible and reduce costs, but also ensuring safeguards so that all leaseholders receive the information they need
• Introducing mandatory qualifications for managing agents to ensure that all agents have the knowledge and skills they need to provide a good service for leaseholders.

The press release issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 18 December 2024.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement published today will provide £69 billion for councils across the country.

£69 billion of funding will be injected into council budgets across England to help them drive forward the government’s Plan for Change through investment and reform and to fix the foundations of local government, ministers have announced today (Wednesday 18th December).

The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement will provide £69 billion for councils across the country, a real-terms increase of 3.5% from 2024-25, which includes a new emergency £600 million Recovery Grant, offering better value for money through the repurposing of grants to help support councils most in need and maximise every penny of public spending to ensure it delivers for working people.

And £3.7 billion of funding will be made available to social care authorities to support adult and children’s services through the Settlement. This includes £880 million for the Social Care Grant – an increase of £200 million compared to what was indicated last month, taking its total to £5.9 billion – which will support councils to deliver care for adults and children in their communities, helping to reduce pressure on the NHS.

No council will see a reduction in Core Spending Power. Places with a significant rural population will on average receive around a 5% increase in their Core Spending Power to ensure rural communities have the support they need. We are maintaining the previous government’s referendum threshold for council tax , which will be maintained at 3% with 2% for the adult social care precept to protect local taxpayers

And laying the groundwork for wider children’s social care reform, today an increase to the new Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant has been confirmed, which will be uplifted from £250m to £263 million at the final Settlement early next year. This is a step towards ensuring children get the best start to life as set out in our Plan for Change. This will fund a national rollout of Family Help, a preventative service at the core of children’s social care reform, and will make funding available to help ensure that children can stay with their families or in safe loving homes wherever possible.

This mission-led government is determined to bring growth to every corner of the country, and local councils are crucial in this journey to deliver the change communities need – from building the 1.5 million new homes, helping to grow their local economies, and delivering the strong local services communities rely on.

Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner said:

Local leaders are central to our mission to deliver change for hard-working people in every corner of the country through our Plan for Change, and I know our councils are doing everything they can to stay afloat and provide for their communities day in day out.

We won’t take the easy option or shy away from the hard work needed to rebuild a more effective and efficient system. These kind of reforms won’t happen overnight, but we are determined to deliver fairer funding, ending postcode lotteries meaning everyone gets the support from public services they deserve.

Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution, Jim McMahon said: 

We know councils are calling out for help which is why we have prioritised this vital increase in funding, but we must stop taxpayers’ money being thrown into a broken system.

As a former council leader I know too well that councils have suffered from short-term solutions. But we will fix this outdated system, turning to our partners in local government, working hand in hand to bring ambitious reform and do the long-term, necessary work to rebuild the foundations, and crucially, trust.

Alongside the additional money announced today, the government will be giving the sector a say on how we fundamentally fix the current funding system from 2026-27. By distributing public funding more fairly, based on an up-to-date assessment of need, we will deliver better value for money for taxpayers so that councils across the country can deliver high-quality services. This builds on the ‘Fair Funding Review’ carried out by the previous government, which highlighted the need for change but was never implemented. We will go further, ousting the resource-heavy bureaucracy of bidding for different funding pots

In 2026-27 the government will bring forward the first multi-year settlement in a decade to provide greater certainty and stability to councils and ensure that every penny of taxpayer cash provides value for money through a more streamlined and efficient delivery system.

The government is determined to make the tough decisions and fix the foundations of the local government sector, with skyrocketing demand on services and top-down Westminster-centric decision-making that has left local leaders struggling to deliver the public services communities need.

The need to restore transparency and accountability over how public money is spent is clear, which is why the government has been clearing the audit backlog and is carrying out a systematic overhaul of the broken local audit system. Local audit should be the bedrock of local accountability and transparency, of trust and confidence in councils to spend taxpayer money wisely. The strategy for overhauling local audit, published today, sets out a range of measures for rebuilding the system including, as announced in the English Devolution White Paperthis week, the creation the Local Audit Office. This will streamline, simplify and bring the different functions in the current system together. It will be proportionate and do only what its name says – we are not recreating the bloated Audit Commission.

And as part of a determination to ensure that local government throughout the country is fit, legal and decent, today a ten-week consultation has launched on strengthening the Standards and Conduct Framework in England. Views are being sought on a range of proposals including mandating a model code of conduct, strengthening the investigation processes for code of conduct breaches, and introducing the sanction of suspension.

By getting councils back on their feet and giving local leaders more control, stability and certainty over their spending we will deliver better services for taxpayers and boost local economies. Equipping and empowering councils with new Social Care funding will help reduce the strain on the NHS and ensure every child in Britain gets the best start in life as part of our Plan for Change.

Further information

Further details on all of the above, including allocations for individual councils and our consultation document, can be found on the provisional local government finance settlement page 2025-26 here.

The government’s consultation on funding reform from 2026-27 can be found here.

Core Spending Power is a measure of the resources available to local authorities to fund service delivery. It sets out the money that has been made available to councils through the local government finance settlement.

The provisional local government finance settlement includes:

• A total funding package worth £69 billion funding for councils in England in 2025-26, including:
• A new £600 million Recovery Grant for areas most in need;
• £880 million uplift to the Social Care Grant;
• A new £250 million Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant, which will be uplifted at the final Settlement to £263 million.

The government confirmed it will provide £515m of funding at the final local government finance settlement to support to local government meet the increased costs of directly employed staff arising from changes to employer National Insurance Contribution (NICs).

The previous government’s referendum threshold for council tax will be maintained at 3% with 2% for the adult social care precept to protect local taxpayers.

Several grants including the Rural Services Delivery Grant and the Services Grant will be repurposed. The government will ensure the impact of rurality on the cost of service delivery and demand is reflected in the public consultation next year. Places with a significant rural population will still on average receive around a 5% increase in their Core Spending Power. No council will see a reduction.

Councils will also receive over £1 billion in total through the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packing scheme (pEPR) which will cover the existing costs they incur for managing household packaging waste, provide additional funding for new legal duties, and support much needed investment in the waste and recycling industry.

The government will provide confirmation of the final local government finance settlement once the four-week consultation has closed and all responses have been considered in early 2025.

Minister McMahon’s full Written Ministerial Statement is available here.

Further information on local audit reform, is available here.

• Further information on the Local Government Standards and Conduct Framework consultation, is available here.

The full English Devolution White Paper can be found here.