By Melissa Barker, Michael Callaghan

The government has issued its long-awaited consultation setting out more details about its proposals to ban the sale of houses by granting the buyer a long lease and to ban ground rents in all new residential leases. The proposals will not affect existing leases of houses or flats.

The government announced these proposals at the end of 2017 (see our article ‘Major changes proposed to how new houses and flats are sold in England’ on 2 January 2018) and this consultation follows a silence of almost ten months. The consultation invites comment on the proposals it makes, how they will operate and where exemptions might be needed.