Commonhold: the future of flat ownership

About this event

In its Commonhold White Paper in March 2025, Government confirmed its plans to make commonhold “the default tenure” for flats through a “comprehensive new legal framework” based on recommendations from the Law Commission, alongside a ban on new leasehold flats. Draft legislation is due to be published before the end of the year.

As the White Paper explains:
At the heart of the commonhold model is a simple principle: the people who should own buildings, and who should exercise control over their management, shared facilities and related costs, are not third-party landlords but the people who live in flats within them and have a direct stake in their upkeep.

Join an expert panel at UCL Faculty of Laws to discuss this significant development and its wider implications.

The event is designed for those with an interest in flats and other multi-unit developments, communities, planning and urbanisation, as lawyers, researchers or practitioners.

Panel Speakers:

• Nick Hopkins – Nick is Professor of Land Law at UCL. From 2015 to 2025, he was a Law Commissioner for England and Wales where he led the Law Commission’s work on commonhold, which forms the basis of the new legal framework.
• Mari Knowles - Mari is a solicitor at Commonhold and Leasehold Experts Limited, working in private practice, specialising in commonhold and property management, in particular. Mari was, until recently, editor of the LexisNexis Commonhold textbook for lawyers, and now works with various industry organisations on commonhold implementation and education. Mari formerly worked at the Law Commission.
• Martin Boyd – Martin is a long-term campaigner for leasehold and commonhold reform, RMC chair, Chair of the registered Charity the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and Chair of the government funded Leasehold Advisory Service. Martin restarted the commonhold debate in Parliament on 26th June 2014 and has worked with the sector, government and experts across the world to help understand how the system can be made to work more effectively in England.

Panel Chair:

• Fabiana Bettini –Fabiana is a Lecturer in Property Law at the UCL Faculty of Laws. Before joining UCL, she held junior research positions at the University of Oxford and Sciences Po, Paris. She earned her doctorate in Comparative Private Law in Italy. Her research focuses on comparative property law, examining property institutions across common law and civil law jurisdictions, with a particular interest in multi-unit buildings. Her scholarship explores how property law can respond to broader social challenges, including housing affordability and building safety.