The government is pushing ahead with long-awaited reforms to the leasehold system which will make it impossible for developers and freeholders to impose swingeing ground rents on leasehold residents.

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick said the new system, brought in as part of the government’s response to the leasehold homes scandal –  in which buyers of new-build houses were asked to pay large ground rents which doubled every 10 years – will see leaseholders given the right to extend their leases at zero ground rent.

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