An Act to enable tenants of houses held on long leases at low rents to acquire the freehold or an extended lease; to apply the Rent Acts to premises held on long leases at a rackrent, and to bring the operation of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 into conformity with the Rent Acts as so amended; to make other changes in the law in relation to premises held on long leases, including amendments of the Places of Worship (Enfranchisement) Act 1920; and for purposes connected therewith.
The act grants the right to long leaseholders of houses let at low and moderately low rents to buy their homes compulsorily from their landlords at a fair price.
Initially the 1967 act applied only to homes below these rateable values: £400 p.a. in London and £200 p.a. elsewhere (thus targeting low-to-middle income homeowners); the reform coincided with lower wages becoming less of a bar to access to loans from major mortgage lenders. The act has since been amended on a number of occasions to expand these rights, to homeowners having higher rateable values.[1]
Background
English law and lending eschews the concept of flying freehold entire properties, such as flats. The solution was to set up a standard model of any flat ownership based on landlord and tenant but which is not seen in much of Europe where a more commonhold system of ownership is common, as long-term flat owners wish to gain a greater than 'transient' or 'time-barred' interest in their home. Such long leases were already in use in housing, as before purpose-built apartments were built, an aristocratic or other large capitalist landlord could co-steer the successful, competitive development of their urban estates; these took the initial form of "building leases" then leases to allow the flexibility of the landlord deciding whether to create apartments, extensions, shorter-term lettings all of which liberties have been tempered by law or by secured lending codes to enhance the status of long-term lessees. The dozen or so private great collections of reversions continue the landlord-tenant relation with piecemeal reductions, across the Central London grander residential zones, in the leasehold valuation tribunals referred to as "Prime Central London".
