Leasehold data project: Request for tender

Background

LEASE was established in 1994. We are an Executive non-Departmental Public Body (or ‘Arm’s Length Body’), which exists to support future and current leaseholders, commonholders, shared owners and park homeowners. We offer free expert advice through our website and telephone advice service in order to empower consumers to make informed decisions about managing their homes.

There are an estimated 4.98 million leasehold homes in England and a further 235,000 in Wales. The tenure is currently undergoing significant reform. The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 put an end to ground rents for most new residential leasehold properties in England and Wales. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 in turn makes it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to extend their lease, buy their freehold and take over management of their building. The Act also improves transparency over leaseholders’ service charges. Meanwhile, the Government have committed to taking steps to make commonhold the default tenure and recently published a Commonhold White Paper outlining how it will do so. Amongst this shifting landscape LEASE has a vital role in guiding consumers through this period of transition and providing advice and information they can trust as the reforms, are implemented.

One key way we want to support leaseholders and help them maximise their rights is to help provide them with information and data that will allow them to make informed decisions about managing their homes. One area where this has been challenging has been around lease length. As leases reduce in length and approach 80 years they become increasingly expensive to extend and difficult to sell or secure further lending. Unfortunately, leaseholders often do not have a strong understanding of the length or terms of their lease and as such they are not able to make informed decisions. This is exacerbated because publicly available data on leases is often incomplete. This project would seek to improve LEASEs access to lease data and support the development of a public facing tool that would allow consumer to check the length of their leases quickly at no cost.

Objectives

• Improve LEASE’s access to robust and reliable data on leases and their lengths. This will align with one of LEASE’s wider objectives to become an authoritative voice on leasehold data.
• Help leaseholders access accurate information on their lease. This would improve transparency and efficiency in the property market. By providing leaseholders with a simple tool to find accurate information on their lease we will empower consumers to make informed decisions around their properties.

Deliverables

• Analysis of relevant data including the HMLR Lease and National Polygon Service datasets in order to provide LEASE with better information on existing leases and their lengths. We will provide access to the relevant HMLR datasets through our data sharing agreement.
• A public facing tool for our website that will allow end users to check their lease length

Contract length and timeline

This is a discrete project that needs to be complete by June 2025. The anticipated contractual term would be from mid-May until end of June allowing circa 6 weeks to complete the work.

Selection process

To bid for this work we are asking for written submissions. Please provide a comprehensive proposal demonstrating how you will meet our requirements. This should be no more than 10 pages in document or presentation format including appendices and examples of past work.

Proposals will be evaluated and scored against the evaluation criteria below:

• Fits the scope of brief and meets the organisation’s objectives (weighting: 30%)
  • Demonstrated understanding and evidencing of how the proposal will meet the organisation’s objectives.
  • Clarity and feasibility of the proposed approach to analysis and development of the final tool.
• Technical Expertise and Experience (weighting: 15%)
  • Expertise in undertaking analysis of large and complex datasets
  • Proven experience of developing and delivering public facing online tools
• Delivery and timings stuff (weighting: 15%)
  • Clarity and feasibility of the proposed project plan, including timelines for producing key deliverables
  • Demonstrated ability to manage projects effectively and deliver on time and within budget.
• Price (weighting: 40%)
  • Overall cost of the proposal and value for money

The deadline for submitting bids is the 16 May, please send bids to: procurement@lease-advice.org