Nine in ten people who bought a leasehold home regret it, according to a new report from Propertymark that delivers an uncomfortable verdict on leasehold property investment: eight years of reform have failed to free flat owners from rising costs, opaque rules and a market where sales routinely collapse.
The report, Leasehold: Still a Life Sentence?, published on 15 July 2026 in partnership with the National Leasehold Campaign (NLC) and the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership (LKP), draws on evidence from more than 200 Propertymark member agents and 1,200 leaseholders.
It arrives eight years after Propertymark’s 2018 study, Leasehold: A Life Sentence, which exposed restrictive lease terms across England and Wales and helped drive legislative change. The follow-up’s conclusion is blunt: leaseholders remain trapped, and the market is not functioning.
The flats that will not sell
Estate agents surveyed for the report identify three consistent barriers to selling flats: onerous service charges, cited by 74 per cent, escalating ground rents, cited by 65 per cent, and short leases, cited by 63 per cent.
According to the report, more than 78 per cent of agents have withdrawn at least one leasehold property from the market in the past two years because it was unsellable. Fewer than 1 per cent said selling a leasehold property had become easier over the same period.
The human cost is illustrated by a case study of a leaseholder named Stacey, who accepted offers on her home five times over eight years. On every occasion the buyer pulled out because of uncertainties connected with the leasehold.
For investors, the findings chime with wider market data showing house prices have risen three times faster than flats since 2020, a divergence driven in part by service charge and ground rent concerns.
Commonhold is coming, but not quickly
The UK Government has set out plans, detailed in its commonhold white paper, to make commonhold the default tenure and ban leasehold for most new flats. Propertymark argues that timetable is no answer for those trapped now.
Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, said: “The UK Government plans to replace leasehold with commonhold, but the transition will take time. While leasehold reform is needed, relying solely on commonhold could leave thousands of existing leaseholders without meaningful change for decades.”
He added that reforms must “deliver meaningful and measurable change, creating a system that is fit for future generations.”
Campaigners demand delivery, not ambition
Katie Kendrick OBE, founder of the NLC, said the report makes one thing undeniable: leasehold remains a life sentence. “Despite nearly a decade of commitments, progress has been too slow, too limited, and too easily diluted,” she said, urging ministers to “deliver practical, enforceable solutions”.
Sebastian O’Kelly, director at the LKP, warned that “commonhold cannot become an excuse for delaying meaningful reform for existing leaseholders”. He called for faster action on opaque service charges, regulation of managing agents and more affordable enfranchisement and lease extensions.
“The evidence has been gathered. The problems are well understood. What leaseholders need now is delivery,” he said.
What this means for leasehold property investment
For landlords and portfolio investors, the report is a reminder that leasehold flats carry a liquidity risk that headline yields do not capture. A property that cannot be sold, or that sits through five collapsed transactions, is a very different asset from the one on the brochure.
That risk is already reshaping behaviour, with many landlords selling up as reform pressures mount and others rethinking which property types deliver the best buy-to-let returns.
The direction of travel favours reform: service charge transparency, managing agent regulation and cheaper lease extensions are all on the Government’s agenda. Investors who scrutinise service charge histories, lease lengths and ground rent clauses before buying, and who price in reform delays, will be best placed when, or if, delivery finally matches ambition.
