Across Mid Leicestershire's growing new-build estates, thousands of households who own their homes outright still find themselves paying open-ended charges to private management companies for the upkeep of roads, drainage, lighting and green spaces that, on older estates, a council would simply look after. These charges can rise year on year with little transparency and, until recently, almost no meaningful way to challenge them. This is the practice that has come to be known as "fleecehold," and bringing it to an end has been one of my consistent priorities since being elected.
This page sets out, in plain terms, where the reforms now stand.
What the problem is
When a developer builds a new estate, responsibility for the communal areas is usually settled when planning permission is granted. Local authorities are often reluctant to "adopt" (take over) those areas because of the long-term maintenance cost, so the developer instead appoints a private estate management company and passes the bill to homeowners through an estate management charge.
The difficulties are well documented. Freeholders have historically had far weaker rights than leaseholders to see how their money is spent, to query poor or overpriced work, or to remove a failing manager. Former housing ministers have estimated that a large share of new housing supply is now sold on this basis, affecting well over a million homes nationally. For families who saved hard to buy a freehold property, discovering they face an uncapped, hard-to-challenge charge for the life of the home is a genuine injustice.
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024
The foundation for reform was laid by the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, passed under the previous Conservative government. For freeholders on managed estates, the Act created, for the first time, a proper framework of rights: greater transparency over what estate charges cover, a right to challenge unreasonable charges and poor-quality work before the tribunal, and a right to apply to appoint a replacement manager where the existing one is failing.
The frustration — and I have been candid about this — is that most of these protections are not yet in force. They require further regulations and commencement before homeowners can actually rely on them. Some early provisions have begun to take effect, but the substantive estate-management protections await implementation.
The two government consultations
To take the next steps, the Government ran two consultations on freehold estate management, both of which closed on 12 March 2026:
- Enhanced protections for homeowners on freehold estates — including a commitment to stop homeowners losing their home over arrears on an estate charge, removing the most disproportionate enforcement powers, and bringing the 2024 Act's transparency and challenge rights into operation.
- Adoption of estate infrastructure — examining how to get more communal areas adopted by local authorities in the first place, through common build standards, removing the financial incentives that make non-adoption attractive to developers, and better data on existing arrangements.
These are steps forward, but in my view they do not yet go far enough. In particular, freeholders still lack a clear and affordable "right to manage" — the ability to take control away from an unaccountable company without a costly fight. I will keep pressing for that gap to be closed.
The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill
On 27 January 2026 the Government published a draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. Its headline measures concern commonhold and leasehold flats — making commonhold the default for new flats and capping ground rents — but it sits alongside the wider programme to implement the 2024 Act's freehold protections, including standardised service charge demands and accounts for freeholders on private estates.
Because reform on this scale is complex, the Bill was published in draft so it could be examined in detail before being formally introduced. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee carried out that scrutiny and published its report on 27 May 2026, concluding that the draft is a significant step but needs strengthening before it becomes law. The Government is required to respond within two months.
What happens next
The expectation is that an amended Bill will be introduced to Parliament in autumn 2026, with the aim of Royal Assent by mid-2027. Different measures will then be brought into force at different times. The freehold estate-management protections will depend both on this timetable and on the regulations that follow the spring consultations.
My commitment
I will continue to hold the Government to account on three things: that the protections already passed in 2024 are actually commenced rather than left on the statute book; that homeowners gain a real, affordable route to challenge charges and replace failing managers; and that, going forward, fewer estates are left in this position at all because councils adopt communal areas properly from the start.
If you live on a managed estate in Mid Leicestershire and are struggling with estate charges or a management company, please get in touch with my office — your experience helps me make the case for stronger reform.