Leaseholder service charge rules to take effect from April 2027, with social landlords given until 2028

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is laying five sets of regulations in Parliament on 12 November 2026 that will give leaseholders in England new rights to question service charges from 1 April 2027.

The government said more than three million leaseholders would benefit. The rules implement protections in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 and follow consultations held in 2024 and 2025, MHCLG said.

From 1 April 2027, leaseholders will be able to demand information about their service charges, including from previous years, and landlords will need a good reason to refuse. From the same date landlords will need court or tribunal approval to pass legal costs on to leaseholders, who in turn gain a right to recover their own legal costs.

Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said: "Rapidly escalating and frequently opaque service charges are placing huge financial strain on hard-pressed leaseholders across the country."

The timetable

MHCLG said the commencement dates are subject to Parliamentary approval. A sixth set of regulations, covering the detail of the litigation cost reforms, will be laid before the end of 2026 and commence on 1 April 2027.

From 1 November 2027, leaseholders will automatically receive clearer information on the charges they pay, including building insurance and administration fees, whoever owns the building. Private landlords will also have to use standardised service charge demand forms and provide financial accounts and annual reports from that date.

Councils and housing associations must provide the standardised demand forms, accounts and annual reports from 1 November 2028. The government said social landlords get an extra 12 months because of the complexity of their accounting and service charge systems, and that it had gathered evidence from social landlords to inform the timetable.

The department said the phased approach reflected consultation responses saying organisations needed time to change their billing, accounting and service charge systems.

The consultation

According to MHCLG's response document, the consultation on implementing the 2024 Act measures ran from 4 July to 26 September 2025 and received 1,356 responses across England and Wales. In that response, published in July 2026, the government said it planned to give private landlords 12 months' notice of the measures and social landlords 24 months' notice.

The response also set out plans for a standardised framework for service charge accounts, with the annual budget to accompany the initial demand form. When MHCLG announced the outcome on 15 July 2026 it said landlords would have to provide an annual report giving leaseholders insight into the condition of their building and plans for major works.

The 2024 Act itself contains sections on service charge demands (section 55), accounts and annual reports (section 56) and the right to obtain information on request (section 57). It requires landlords to provide a written statement of account in a specified form and manner.

Kion Ahadi, Chief Executive of the Leasehold Advisory Service, said: "Service charges are the most common issue leaseholders contact us about."

MHCLG's 2025 consultation document said service charge enquiries alone made up over a quarter of enquiries to LEASE in 2023/24, and that the level of service charges had increased significantly for many leaseholders.

The scale of the leasehold sector

Figures on the number of people affected vary by measure. The press release refers to over three million leaseholders. MHCLG's official statistics for 2024-25 estimate 4.90 million leasehold dwellings in England, 20% of the housing stock, while the ministerial foreword to the 2025 consultation referred to leases across five million dwellings.

Of England's leasehold dwellings in 2024-25, 3.38 million (69%) were flats and 1.52 million (31%) were houses, according to the statistics. In London, 39% of all dwellings were leasehold.

Leasehold dwellings in England, 2024-25	Million
Flats	3.38
Houses	1.52

What happens next

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the changes were "only the beginning", with wider reforms planned through the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, which MHCLG said is due to be introduced in Parliament before Christmas 2026.

The government said the Bill would make a revised commonhold model the default for most new flats, make it easier for existing leaseholders to move to commonhold, cap existing ground rents at £250 and replace the forfeiture system with a new enforcement regime. The Commonhold White Paper had proposed a ban on the sale of new leasehold flats so that commonhold becomes the default tenure.

The first of the new service charge rights take effect on 1 April 2027, subject to Parliamentary approval.