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On the 50th anniversary of the coming into force of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, John Stephenson reflects on a landmark piece of legislation
The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 can justifiably be regarded as the landmark piece of legislation for houses during the more than century-long process of addressing what are seen as the ills of the leasehold system.
On the 50th anniversary of the coming into force of the Act, it is a moment to look back to its passing and the effect that it and its sister legislation relating to flats (the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993) have had and continue to have on the principles of leasehold tenure.
The history of the Act
It was as far back as 1884 that the splendidly named Royal Commission for the Housing of the Working Classes concluded that "legislation favourable to the... leaseholder would conduce greatly to the improvement of the dwellings of the people of this country".
In 1886, a parliamentary select committee was appointed to inquire into the expediency of giving the leaseholders facilities for the purchase of the fee simple (freehold) of their property. Lawyers will note that these things were being discussed long before the Law of Property Act 1925; leasehold reform was an old idea by the time it finally reached the statute book.
Given the dominance of landowners in parliament in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th, it is perhaps unsurprising that these early efforts gained little traction.
It was the combination of a Labour administration under Harold Wilson, and the plight of Welsh miners - whose leases of their cottages, granted in the 19th century when the freeholds were usually owned by the mine owners before post-war nationalisation, but now mainly owned by remote corporate investors, were rapidly nearing their end - that finally moved parliament to act. First, parliament introduced the 1966 White Paper on Leasehold Reform in England and Wales, and then the bill which became the 1967 Act.
The individual politician most associated with...