The Pennycook Drops for Leaseholders – We Have Been Betrayed by Labour and Let Down by the Leaseholder Organisations Which Claim to Represent Us

The results of the May 7th 2026 local elections sent a message to the government of Kier Starmer, and nowhere was the anger more visible than among leaseholders. Across social media, frustration with Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook exploded. The words appearing again and again were “betrayal”, “sold out”, and “jam tomorrow”.

Labour politicians and campaigners spent years telling leaseholders that real reform was finally coming. During the election 2024 campaign, Labour talked about ending the “feudal” leasehold system, making commonhold the default, and empowering homeowners trapped in exploitative blocks. The rhetoric was bold. In government, the reality has been painfully weak.

Leaseholders were told reform would begin within the first 100 days. We heard promises to “abolish” leasehold for flats, “end” the scandal, and finally rebalance power away from freeholders and managing agents. Instead, what we have seen is delay, caution, excuses, and retreat.

And yet, some groups seem to defend the government at all costs. The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership (LKP) and the National Leasehold Campaign (NLC), two closely related groups, have dismissed angry leaseholders as “over-excitable” or accused critics of exaggerating a so-called “betrayal narrative”. On the NLC Facebook group and other forums, dissenting voices have been removed from the group, without warning or explanation, apparently for questioning Labour’s direction or the performance of LKP or NLC, or posting material promoting other leasehold campaign groups. LKP continue to amplify government claims which we know are untrue (that leasehold will be ‘ended’ or ‘dismantled’ in the current parliament). Neither LKP nor NLC are themselves elected or accountable to leaseholders in any way. They are in my view, hugely out of step with the feelings of most leaseholders. Photos of NLC/LKP with government ministers and no account of the meeting, nor consultation with supporters is not representation. Many leaseholders feel that LKP and NLC are far too cosy with government.

But now the penny has dropped and leaseholders see the betrayal is not a ‘narrative’ or irrtational fear – it is real.

The government has still not implemented the Law Commission’s recommendations on Right to Manage. RTM was supposed to become cheaper, simpler and accessible. It has not. It would have been simple to drop the threshold for an RTM application from 50% to say 30% or 35%, and that could not be legally challenged by freeholders, but this was not done and there is no explanation from the government. There was at least an improvement as far as the % of commercial properties allowed in an RTM application (up from 25% to 50%) which will help a few but getting the 50% of leaseholders is a massive hurdle, especially in large city centre developments with huge proprotions of buy to let flats and absentee landlords who are hard to find or contact.

Neither are there any changes to RTM which would make directors more accountable to leaseholders – e.g. mandatory and fair elections and AGMs. Without this many RTMs remain unrepresentative of leaseholders and unaccountable to them, Chelsea Bridge Wharf, London SW11 (the UK’s largest RTM), being a case in point.


There is no regulation of managing agents proposed. Enfranchisement remains unaffordable for most leaseholders and the 50% threshold is also unachievable at most developments, which blocks the path to commonhold conversions. This means leaseholders staying trapped in leasehold AND being unable to access any levers of power against the agent and freeholder.

Leaseholders still face legal traps, technical failures and professional freeholder obstruction. There is no provision to stop freeholders ’embedding agents’ in developments. Many LAFRA provisions have still not been switched on.

Only a tiny percentage of developments have achieved RTM or enfranchisement and therefore the propotion who will be able to convert to commonhold is likely to be even smaller..if commonhold ever happens. The long-promised Commonhold Bill has been delayed again and again. Ministers now openly admit it may not be in effect until the next Parliament. By then, the political landscape could be completely different. Aided by malign foreign actors and unchecked millions in donations, Reform UK is, sadly, rising. A future Reform government could gut what little progress has been made or abandon reform entirely. Having alienated its traditional supporters and seeing a membership crash under Starmer, Labour is unable to crack down on such donations to other parties because it also relies on highly questionable corporate donations, including those from mysterious property developer collectives.

Meanwhile, Labour’s actual measures look painfully timid beside the promises. A £250 a year ground rent cap. starting in ? 2028. A 40-year sunset on ground rent. These are weak reforms that still preserve the power structures of leasehold: we were promised transformation and got managerial tinkering.

Even worse, ministers have started preparing leaseholders for failure or even blaming them for having misunderstood what was in fact a clear promise to abolish leasehold by the Labour Government. We now hear phrases like “we cannot do it overnight” and “it’s not realistic to abolish leasehold immediately”. But nobody asked for overnight perfection. Leaseholders asked for the government to deliver what it promised, to show political courage and a clear direction of travel.

Instead, the message now sounds disturbingly close to: “We’re not really going to abolish it.”

That is why anger is growing. Every year of delay creates more leaseholders, more victims, and more people trapped in unsellable or financially toxic homes. By the end of this Parliament, there may actually be more leaseholders than when Labour took office.

For many campaigners, this is the deepest frustration of all. After decades of abuse by developers, freeholders and managing agents, leaseholders finally believed a government was on their side. Now they are being told to wait again. Jam tomorrow, forever.

There is till time for Labour to change course, they have 3 years till the next election and a large majority. However it is clear a change of leadership is needed, in terms of the Prime Minister and those ministers who have taken such a feeble and ineffective approach to these vital reforms. There are many reasons why voters rejected Labour – local and national, but failure on leasehold was certainly one of them. If they want to get a greater share of the 5 million+ leaseholder votes at the next election they need to give us something concrete in the very near future.