About
On 13 May 2026, the King opened the new parliamentary session with the King’s Speech, setting out the government’s legislative agenda for the months ahead. Four new Bills were highlighted that will reshape the landscape for leaseholders, landlords, developers, housing associations, and tenants alike.
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill
This is the most far-reaching reform for residential property owners in a generation. The Bill delivers on the government’s long-standing promise to overhaul the leasehold system to iron out issues between landlords and tenants.
The biggest change is that leasehold will be banned for all new flats. In its place, “commonhold” becomes the default form of ownership. Commonhold means that flat owners collectively own and manage their building through a commonhold association, rather than being tenants of a freeholder.
Despite being available as a legal option for over 20 years, fewer than 20 commonholds currently exist in England and Wales. The Bill creates a modernised legal structure designed to work for mixed-use and mixed-tenure developments, which hopes to remove some of the practical barriers that have held commonhold back.
For existing leaseholders, the Bill introduces a new conversion process that will no longer require the unanimous consent of every owner in a building. Financial reforms will cap ground rents at £250 per year, falling to peppercorn ground rent after 40 years. This will affect millions of residential leaseholders who collectively pay millions in ground rents annually.
The Bill also includes protections against forfeiture and reforms to estate rentcharges. Additional measures give leaseholders the right to request improvements such as gigabit-capable broadband and make it more affordable and straightforward to extend a lease or purchase the freehold.
Remediation Bill
Nearly nine years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, thousands of buildings have still retained unsafe cladding. Of the thousands of buildings over 11 metres tall identified as requiring work in England, only 35% have been remediated to date.
The Remediation Bill makes construction product manufacturers financially responsible for remediation costs and places a clear legal duty on freeholders (and other responsible parties) to identify, assess, and repair unsafe buildings without delay.
For building owners and managing agents, a key practical change is the introduction of mandatory external wall assessments. A new register will be created for medium-rise buildings (those between 11 and 18 metres tall) that require remediation, improving transparency and oversight.
Importantly, if responsible parties fail to act, third-party bodies such as Homes England will have the power to step in, carry out the necessary work, and recover costs.
Social Housing Renewal Bill
This Bill aims to tackle the long-term depletion of social housing by reforming the Right to Buy scheme.
Since the Eighties, over two million council tenants have purchased their homes under Right to Buy. The new legislation will extend the eligibility period to 10 years (meaning tenants must have been in social housing longer before they can buy), exempt newly built social housing from the scheme for 35 years, and require councils to be informed before any sale so they have the opportunity to retain the property within the social housing stock. Discount structures will also be adjusted to align with new maximum cash discounts.
The Bill introduces enhanced protections for victims of domestic abuse. It also reduces red tape for local authorities by repealing provisions from earlier legislation that were never implemented, including requirements to sell high-value council homes and to charge higher-income tenants increased rents.
Energy Independence Bill
The Energy Independence Bill will require landlords to make energy-efficient improvements to rental properties. A new body, the Warm Homes Agency, will be established to administer the £15 billion Warm Homes Plan, which aims to help 400,000 families reduce fuel poverty by 2030.
For property owners and developers, the Bill also reforms planning and regulatory frameworks to support faster deployment of clean energy infrastructure, including offshore wind, hydrogen, and smart grid technologies. Changes to land access rules and network consenting processes are intended to speed up grid development, while new measures will remove charges on electricity exports and offer discounted energy during periods of excess generation.
What Happens Next
These Bills now begin their journey through Parliament, where they may be amended before becoming law.
If you would like to discuss how any of these proposals might affect your property interests, portfolio, or development plans, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our team.
You can read the full King’s Speech background briefing notes here.
