Leasehold reforms explained
Service charges and building management
The reforms in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 aim to give you more control over your building, make service charges and building insurance clearer and fairer, and reduce the cost of challenging unreasonable service charges.
| Area of change | Proposed change |
|---|---|
| Service charges | Bills must be in a standardised, easy-to-read format |
| Buildings insurance | Landlords and managing agents will be banned from earning commission or passing on inflated costs for arranging insurance to leaseholders. Any fee must be fair, clearly shown and only cover the actual cost of the work involved. |
| Challenging unreasonable charges | You will no longer automatically have to pay your landlord’s legal costs when challenging a service charge or administration charge. There will be exceptions, and a tribunal will still be able to order you to pay in some cases. |
| Redress schemes | Landlords who manage their own building will have to join a government-approved redress (complaints) scheme |
| Right to manage and right to appoint a manager | New measures to reduce the costs, paperwork and time it takes for leaseholders to manage the building themselves or appoint their own agent |
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The government has not finalised exactly how all the proposed changes will work in practice.
What to do now?
Use your current rights to check and challenge charges - you have the right to request information about them and challenge unreasonable ones:
Check if you qualify for the right to manage your building and if you and your neighbours want to use it.
Get help resolving leasehold disputes between you and your landlord (freeholder) or their managing agents.
- Last updated:
- 28 January 2026
- Next review:
- 27 July 2026