Justice For Property Rights has warned the government could face major legal action and compensation claims worth billions of pounds over proposed leasehold and commonhold reforms.
The campaign group criticised the latest report from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which urged ministers to move faster and further with leasehold reform measures.
Justice For Property Rights said it is working with a major law firm on potential legal challenges relating to what it describes as the erosion of long-established property rights and investor protections.
The organisation also claimed the committee’s inquiry process failed to properly reflect the views of smaller investors, family-run businesses and individual freeholders, arguing that evidence presented during the inquiry was weighted too heavily towards institutional bodies and campaign groups supporting reform.
Richard Merrin, spokesperson for Justice for Property Rights said: “This inquiry was fundamentally skewed from the outset. The voices of ordinary investors and small business owners were ignored in favour of a politically convenient narrative.
“The result is a report that is economically illiterate, legally dangerous and completely disconnected from the real-world consequences these proposals will have.”
The group warned that the government’s approach increasingly resembles “asset confiscation masquerading as reform”.
“Correcting genuinely excessive ground rents on low-value flats is one thing. But retrospectively deleting contractual income streams entirely – in some cases with 40 years or less remaining – is something very different.
“That is not reform. That is state-backed expropriation.”
Justice for Property Rights said ministers risk undermining one of Labour leader Keir Starmer’s central election promises – economic stability and respect for business confidence.
“The government came to power promising moderation, stability and responsible government. Instead, investors are now looking at what increasingly resembles Corbynism by the back door.
“If the Government can simply erase legally purchased property rights because it is politically fashionable, every asset class in Britain becomes vulnerable.”
The organisation also criticised what it called the “complete irrationality” of the Government’s wider property tax agenda.
“We now have situations where multi-million-pound apartments in prime London locations are seeing their ground rents reduced to peppercorn levels – effectively underwritten by taxpayers – while the same Government prepares additional taxation measures aimed at high-value property owners.
“This is madness. On one hand the state destroys legitimate contractual value, and on the other it seeks to tax the same assets even more aggressively.”
Justice for Property Rights confirmed that legal action is now becoming central to the campaign’s strategy and suggested the prospect of substantial compensation liabilities could become a major political pressure point for the Government.
“The legal issues here are profound. Investors acquired these assets lawfully, transparently and under long-established property frameworks.
“If the Government proceeds with effectively confiscating those rights without proper compensation, the taxpayer could ultimately face liabilities running into billions of pounds.”
The group said it supports proportionate reforms that improve transparency and consumer protection, but warned that ideologically driven policymaking risks destabilising investment, reducing housing delivery and severely damaging confidence in the UK’s legal and property systems.
MPs urge government to accelerate and strengthen leasehold reform
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