leasehold

In law, land or property held by a tenant (lessee) for a specified period (unlike freehold, outright ownership), usually at a rent from the landlord (lessor).

Under English law, houses and flats are often held on a lease for a period, such as 99 years, for which a lump sum is paid, plus an annual ‘ground rent’: the entire property reverts to the original owner at the end of the period. Under the Leasehold Reform Act of 1967, tenants were in many instances given the right to purchase the freehold or extend the lease of houses; and in the 1980s extension of the right to flats was under consideration, possibly in the form of strata title, a method used in Australia, where a building is subdivided (usually by voluntary agreement between landlord and tenants on payment of a capital sum) into ‘strata’, each comprising a standardized freehold (with specified rights, obligations, and rules of management). In 1987 the Law Commission recommended a new type of land ownership called ‘commonhold’, which would give, in effect, freehold ownership of flats or business premises in shared buildings.