The UK Government’s Commonhold White Paper, published on 3 March 2025, commits to making commonhold the default tenure for flats in England and Wales. A reboot of the commonhold legal framework originally introduced in 2002, this new regime (which we refer to as Commonhold 2.0 in this insight) draws on 182 proposals in the Law Commission’s 2020 report. In this insight we discuss the key commercial takeaways.

The government has published its Response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 2 report. This Insight takes a closer look at the Response focusing on some of the major reforms the government plans to make (for the full detail of the reforms, please refer to the Response) and the timeframes for such actions.

The UK government has launched a consultation to reform the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPB) regime, a crucial step towards achieving the nation’s ambitious net-zero targets by 2050. This extensive consultation, which runs until 26 February 2025, seeks to gather input on several key areas of the EPB framework. Here, we delve into the background leading up to this consultation, the key areas being consulted on, and likely next steps.

The decarbonisation of the built environment is likely to be on the UK Government’s agenda as it looks to make good on its commitment at COP29 to cut carbon emissions by 81% from 1990s level by 2035. How will this be achieved? Will Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards play a part, will we see more green leases or more building accreditations and is the UN’s Building Breakthrough initiative beginning to make a substantive difference?

It’s “Love your High Street Week”! So, what better way to start the week than to consider two significant legal reforms announced by the government last week, that are intended to boost and revitalise the High Street: Legislation was introduced to Parliament that will, for the first time, permanently cut business rates for qualifying retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) properties from 2026 (and in the meantime, 250,000 RHL properties will receive 40% relief off business rates bills up to £110,000 per business to help smooth the transition to the new system); and High Street Rental Auctions powers will come into force on 2 December following the laying of secondary legislation last week, that will give businesses and community groups a ‘right to rent’ long-neglected town-centre commercial properties.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023, with the provisions of ECCTA to be brought in by secondary legislation in stages throughout 2024 and 2025. It was widely thought that the provisions of ECCTA that effect changes to The Register of Overseas Entities regime (originally introduced by the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (ECTEA)) would follow later this year, but the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2024 have effected certain changes to the regime as of 4 March 2024, which we will discuss further in this Insight.

In September, ahead of the Conservative party conference, Rishi Sunak announced a step back from the Government’s net zero policy and targets.  This was followed up last week by the Government’s formal response to the Climate Change Committee’s 2023 Annual Progress Report to Parliament (October Response). Whilst we await detail on what might follow from a legislative perspective (several consultations are promised to land before the end of this year), the messaging suggests that the next steps in the domestic Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) regime are now off the table, meaning domestic premises with an EPC of E or above may continue to be let on the open market, without any regulatory requirement for further investment from landlords (or resulting higher rents for tenants).  If domestic MEES have been put on ice, where does that leave their sibling commercial (aka non-domestic) MEES?