King’s Speech details proposed changes to Right to Buy, Leasehold Reform, and Building Safety. What does this mean for Housing Associations?

Social Housing Renewal Bill

This Bill will bring into effect the much publicised and discussed legislative changes to the Right to Buy scheme, which will include increasing the minimum eligibility period from three years to 10 years,  percentage discounts will be amended so that they better align with the new maximum cash discounts starting at 5% of the property’s value increasing by 1% each year to a maximum discount of 15% of the property’s value, and making newly built social housing exempt from the scheme for 35 years after construction.

Going forward the Bill will also ensure that councils and other potential buyers are notified before social homes are sold to maximise opportunities for councils to retain valuable social housing stock.

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: “At a time when 4.2 million people are in need of social housing in England, we strongly support the government’s aim to protect the country’s social housing and welcome confirmation that Right to Buy will not be extended to housing associations. The outcome from the various measures the government is taking should mean that the Right to Buy is a much more sustainable scheme than it has been since 2012.”

Alongside the changes to the Right to Buy scheme, the Bill will also include measures to give victims of domestic abuse more security and stability by allowing them ’to remain in their property away from their abuser or move to suitable alternative accommodation’.

These changes to the Right to Buy scheme in particular have been welcomed by the sector as evidence of the Government’s commitment to protecting the supply of social homes and providing registered providers with greater clarity, hopefully allowing them invest in new homes.

Leasehold and Commonhold Reform

In January 2026, the UK Government published a draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, which will apply to England and Wales. As part of the King’s Speech the Government has reconfirmed its intention to bring forward the legislation to reform and ultimately replace the leasehold system, following the publication of the draft bill earlier this year.

The Bill will make commonhold the default tenure for new flats by restricting the granting or assigning of long leases on new flats and modernising and creating a new legal framework for commonhold.

The new framework will provide flat residents with full freehold ownership of the flats and will contain a “bespoke approach” to communal living without the control of third-party landlords. Alongside these protections for residents, new development rights will be included which will support developers with building commonhold properties, whilst strengthening the protections for consumers on incomplete developments.

Under the Bill, ground rents will also be capped at £250 a year, reducing to a peppercorn after 40 years. The ability for ground rent beneficiaries to bring forfeiture proceedings for a failure by tenants to pay rentcharges will also be abolished and replaced with a statutory lease enforcement scheme instead, which will only allow arrears to be recovered through appropriate proportionate means, such as via cost recovery clauses or through the small claims court.

Whilst the Government’s ambition to make commonhold the default tenure for new flats and strengthen leaseholder rights is admirable, reform must be carefully considered to avoid unnecessary  disruption and ensure existing leaseholders, property agents, and developers can transition effectively to any new system. Getting the legislation and its implementation right will be critical to ensure it provides meaningful benefits for residents, still allows for mixed tenure development, and is appropriate for different types of schemes, particularly relevant for retirement housing.

Building Safety and Remediation

Also featured in the King’s Speech was a new Remediation Bill which will include a new legal duty for construction product manufacturers to pay for the remediation of unsafe cladding on buildings above 11m in height, mandate a nationally consistent approach to remediation work, and introduce plans for a register of all medium-rise buildings between 11m and 18m requiring remediation.

There will also be a new 'remediation backstop' introduced which will allow a third party, such as Homes England, to step in and carry out remediation work themselves.

By including within the Bill stronger powers for regulators, a legal duty on those responsible to fix unsafe buildings, and new processes to ensure remediation can proceed where progress has stalled, the Government hope to increase accountability for those responsible for remediation and to achieve the timelines detailed in their remediation acceleration plan, which aims for all high-rise buildings of 18 metres and above to have works completed, and all buildings of 11 metres and above to at least have a scheduled completion date, by the end of 2029.

What’s Next?

All of the Bills will now need to pass through Parliament and be subject to further amendments and consultations prior to being enacted and becoming law. We will continue to pay attention to the Bills and will provide further updates on any announcements or guidance which is published as may be needed.