Turn on a BBC London bulletin or open a Guardian live-blog and the storyline is familiar: families “trapped” in unsafe flats, paying “eye-watering” service charges, and waiting for Westminster to “end” leasehold. BBC London’s March 2025 package on the Commonhold White Paper literally billed the reforms as the “beginning of the end” of leasehold, framing every interview around residents’ anxiety rather than the mechanics of the policy.
Similar angles are common in other outlets: headlines about service charges rising 11% in a single year; or reports describing leaseholders “horrified” by £10 billion in fire safety costs. These reports play an important role in exposing poor management and legal flaws in the system. But they also embed a specific framing: leaseholders as helpless victims and leasehold as a monolithic problem that can only be solved through total abolition.
What gets largely ignored in these accounts is the legal and operational diversity of leasehold itself. Not all leaseholders are stuck under the thumb of an absentee freeholder. Many blocks are already managed by leaseholders themselves through vehicles like Residents’ Management Companies (RMCs) or Right to Manage (RTM) companies. These structures give leaseholders significant powers—over service charges, contractor selection, building upkeep, and even the appointment or dismissal of managing agents.
RMCs are often written into leases at the development stage, giving the leaseholders direct say in how the building is run. RTM gives leaseholders a statutory route to take over management from a landlord, without needing to prove any misconduct. Even in cases where RTM is unavailable or has failed, leaseholders can apply to the First-tier Tribunal under Section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 to have a new manager appointed. These frameworks are not theoretical—they are in use across tens of thousands of buildings in the UK, and many leaseholders are already actively exercising their rights through them.
Despite this, major media coverage rarely mentions these structures or the legal tools available to leaseholders. Reports tend to present the leaseholder as inherently disempowered, and the landlord as the single barrier to justice. This skews the public’s understanding of what leasehold actually entails. The result is a simplistic narrative where the only way out is wholesale legislative reform—such as the full adoption of commonhold. While reform is clearly needed in areas like ground rents, forfeiture rights, and transparency of costs, the media’s lack of attention to existing legal remedies may actually discourage leaseholders from asserting the rights they already have.
This one-sided portrayal leads to several wider consequences. First, it polarises policy discussions. If the only story being told is that leaseholders are powerless, then nuance and incremental solutions get lost in the push for dramatic change. Second, it contributes to underuse of mechanisms like RTM and Section 24. Many leaseholders may not know these options exist because no one in mainstream media has told them. Finally, it feeds a narrative in which every instance of high service charges or maintenance delays is assumed to be landlord abuse—even in buildings which are self-managed and simply grappling with the real costs of upkeep.
The media can do better by simply asking a few more questions. Is this building already managed by an RMC or RTM company? Have leaseholders been advised of their legal powers or pursued action through the Tribunal? What rights exist within the lease to challenge costs or force consultation under Section 20? Balanced reporting doesn’t mean ignoring abuse—it means recognising that the leasehold system is legally complex, varied in practice, and sometimes functions well under resident control. Painting every leaseholder as a victim may generate sympathy and clicks, but it also undercuts the very empowerment and reform that leaseholders themselves increasingly seek.
A more informed, better contextualised media narrative would serve leaseholders far more than another round of one-dimensional headlines. It would expose injustice without erasing the tools that already exist to address it. Above all, it would reflect reality: leasehold isn’t just a problem—it’s a structure, and one that thousands of leaseholders are already shaping and challenging in ways the media still too often overlooks.