‘Millions remain trapped’: Leaseholders still ‘cash cows’ despite update on abolishing ‘feudal’ system

Published

5 months ago

November 22, 2024

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Long-awaited legislation to abolish England’s “feudal” leasehold property system will be published in the second half of next year, the government has confirmed in a major update for the millions of people affected.

In a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS), housing minister Matthew Pennycook gave the first details of how quickly Labour intend to axe the controversial form of homeownership, as promised in their manifesto.

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The minister said there will be a consultation and white paper early next year to get the plan in motion, with the aim to make commonhold “the default tenure” by the end of parliament in 2029.

The news has drawn a mixed reaction from those caught up in the system, with some hailing an end in sight and others saying it is too little too late.

What is leasehold?

Leasehold is a centuries-old form of tenure that is unique to England and Wales. People who buy their home with a lease buy the right to live there for a given number of years but don’t own the land itself, regardless of whether it is a house, or a flat in a building.

That is the preserve of the freeholder, who can charge expensive ground rents simply for owning the land, as well as service charges for the maintenance and insurance of the properties.

There have long been concerns around leaseholders being exploited, especially by unregulated managing agents who are typically contracted to oversee the day-to-day running of buildings and can charge large fees on any works they arrange.

Criticism intensified after the building safety scandal that emerged post-Grenfell with many homeowners facing crippling bills for remediation, leaving them stuck in worthless properties they cannot sell.

‘I see no way out’

That’s the case for leaseholder Peter Batt, who has not been able to live in his “once lovely” flat in Kent for the past nine months because the roof of the building has “completely failed and is disintegrating”.

This has caused damp, black mould and leaks so severe his neighbour’s ceiling below him has collapsed

The problems were raised to the building’s managing agents in February but no remediation has occurred.

Last week he was told he’d need to cough up £18,000 for his share of the works before any repairs can go ahead – money the 60-year-old doesn’t have.

“I genuinely see no way out unless I win the lottery, it’s been an utter nightmare”, he told Sky News.

Mr Batt and his neighbours want a temporary tin hat cover to be prioritised, given this was recommended by surveyors back in April to stop the situation deteriorating – which they say it now has.

But they have “no say over this despite shouldering all the costs”, Mr Batt added.

“The government need to look at root-and-branch reform because, in my experience, all the parties currently charged with maintaining building such as my own are incentivised almost solely around maintaining their revenue stream.

“Under the current system, no one is on the leaseholders’ side and that has to change.”

‘Death knell of leasehold’

In his WMS, Mr Pennycook said the government will introduce a “comprehensive new legal framework” on commonhold, including banning the sale of leasehold flats and converting existing leasehold tenures to the new model.

Proponents of commonhold say it would drive up safety standards, as it would give flat owners more control of the maintenance of a building while removing the cash incentive for developers to build homes on the cheap – knowing leaseholders can pick up the costs.

Sebastian O’Kelly, of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, welcomed today’s announcement as the “death knell of leasehold”.

He advised people not to buy leasehold properties as “the market will force pace on this”, pointing out that some developers have recently come out in support of commonhold while others “whose reputations have been shredded by the Grenfell findings will follow”.

He told Sky News: “With this momentum the reforms to improve the blighted lives of existing leaseholders will be eased. Government may think this process will be slow, but house builders will know that the leasehold game they have played so assiduously is busted.”

Delay in implementing Tories’ ‘half-baked’ reforms

But there was a more muted response from the National Leasehold Campaign, which has spent six years trying to dismantle the system.

As well as announcing a roadmap for abolishing leasehold, Mr Pennycook set out a timeline for implementing reforms in the Tories’ Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (LFRA), which just about made wash-up when Rishi Sunak called the July election, after being watered down by then housing secretary Michael Gove.

The LFRA promised to abolish leaseholds on new houses but not new flats, which make up 70% of the estimated 5 million leasehold properties in England.

It also aimed to give leaseholders more rights and protections, but Mr Pennycook said the act was “half baked” so there would be delays in implementing some of its measures.

Crucially, that includes rules around new valuations, which will be consulted on next summer, he said.

‘Endless cash cow continues’

The NLC called this “very disappointing” as the mechanism was designed to make it quicker and cheaper for people to buy their freehold or extend their lease “enabling them to sell their properties and move on with their lives”.

“Our main concern now is the fate of existing leaseholders who are currently suffering at the mercy of unregulated managing agents and unscrupulous freeholders,” it added.

“The government’s published intention to ‘act as quickly as possible’ will not be quick enough and we are already seeing the despair from some NLC members who are facing bankruptcy due to escalating service charges.

“Since 2018, leaseholders have heard time and time again from former government ministers that they will end the abuses but in reality nothing has changed for existing leaseholders. Using our homes as an endless cash cow continues and millions remain trapped.”

Politics

DeFi security and compliance must be improved to attract institutions

Published

3 hours ago

April 9, 2025

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DeFi security and compliance must be improved to attract institutions

Opinion by: Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch

Institutional players have been closely watching decentralized finance’s growth. Creating secure and compliant DeFi platforms is the only solution to build trust and attract more institutions.

Clear waters attract big ships

Over the past four years, institutional DeFi adoption has gone from 10% of hedge funds to 47%, and is projected to rise to 65% in 2025. Goldman Sachs is reaching their arms to DeFi for bond issuance and yield farming.

Early adopters are already positioning themselves in onchain finance, including Visa, which has processed over $1 billion in crypto transactions since 2021 and is now testing cross-border payments. In the next two years, institutional adoption will speed up. A compliant regulatory framework that maintains DeFi’s core benefits is necessary for institutional adoption to engage confidently.

DeFi’s institutional trilemma

It is no secret that many DeFi security exploits happen every year. The recent Bybit hack reported a $1.4 billion loss. The breach occurred through a transfer process that was vulnerable to attack. Attacks like these raise concerns about multisignature wallets and blind signing. This happens when users approve transactions without full details, rendering blind signing a significant risk. This case calls for stronger security measures and improvements in user experience.

The threats of theft due to vulnerabilities in smart contracts or mistakes by validators make institutional investors hesitate when depositing large amounts of money into institutional staking pools. Institutions are also at risk of noncompliance due to a lack of clear regulatory frameworks, creating hesitation to enter the space.

The user interface in DeFi is often designed for users with technical expertise. Institutional investors require user-friendly experiences that make DeFi staking possible without relying on third-party intermediaries.

Build it right, and they will come

Institutional interest in bringing traditional assets onchain is enormous, with the tokenized asset market estimated to reach $16 trillion by 2030. To confidently participate in DeFi, institutions need verifiable counterparties that are compliant with regulatory requirements. The entry of traditional institutional players into DeFi has led some privacy advocates to point out that it can counter the essence of decentralization, which forms the bedrock of the ecosystem.

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Institutions must be able to trust DeFi platforms to maintain compliance standards while providing a safe and seamless user interface. A balanced approach is key. DeFi’s permissionless nature can be achieved while maintaining compliance through identity profiles, allowing secure transactions. Similarly, transaction screening tools facilitate real-time monitoring and risk assessment.

Blockchain analytics tools help institutions to maintain compliance with Anti-Money Laundering regulations and prevent interaction with blacklisted wallets. Integrating these tools can help detect and prevent illicit activity, making DeFi safer for institutional engagement.

Intent-based architecture can improve security

The relationship between intent-based architecture and security is evident; the very design is built to reduce risks, creating a more reliable user experience. This protects the user against MEV exploits, a common issue of automated bots scanning for large profitable trades that can be exploited. Intent-based architecture also helps implement compliance frameworks. For instance, restricting order submissions to clean wallets and allowing resolvers to settle only the acceptable orders.

It’s well understood that in traditional DeFi transactions, users rely often on intermediaries like liquidity providers to execute trades or manage funds. This leads to counterparty risk, unauthorized execution and settlement failure. The intent-based architecture supports a trustless settlement that ensures users commit only when all conditions are met, reducing risk and removing blind trust from the picture.

DeFi platforms must simplify interactions and UX for institutional investors. This system bridges the gap between. Through executing offchain while ensuring security, the intent-based architecture makes DeFi safer and more efficient. However, one of the challenges to this includes integrating offchain order matching while maintaining onchain transparency.

Late adopters of DeFi will struggle to keep up

For the early adopters of DeFi, there is a competitive advantage in liquidity access and yield advantages, whereas late adopters will face more regulatory scrutiny and entry barriers. By 2026, the institutional players that have failed to adopt DeFi may struggle to keep up. This is seen in the examples of early adopters like JPMorgan and Citi’s early tokenization projects. TradFi leaders like them are already gearing up for onchain finance.

The way forward

Regulatory bodies, supervisory agencies and policy leaders must provide clear, standardized guidelines to facilitate broader institutional participation. Uniform protocols underpinning wider institutional involvement are underway. DeFi platforms must be prepared beforehand to provide all the necessary pillars of compliance and security to institutional players who want to embrace mainstream adoption. Executing this shall require combined efforts from regulators, developers and institutions.

Opinion by: Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Politics

Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Published

4 hours ago

April 9, 2025

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Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Prediction marketplace Kalshi has started taking Bitcoin (BTC) deposits in a bid to onboard more crypto-native users.

The company that lets users bet on events ranging from election outcomes to Rotten Tomatoes film ratings has seen a strong uptake among crypto traders, Kalshi told Cointelegraph on April 9. For instance, event contracts for betting on Bitcoin’s hour-by-hour price changes have seen $143 million in trading volume to date, a spokesperson said.

Kalshi is a derivatives exchange regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As of April 9, it listed some 50 crypto-related event contracts, including markets for betting on coins’ 2025 highs and lows, as well as on headlines such as US President Donald Trump’s proposed National Bitcoin Reserve.

The platform started accepting crypto payments in October when it enabled stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) deposits.

Kalshi relies on ZeroHash — a crypto payments infrastructure provider — for off-ramping BTC and USDC and converting the deposits to US dollars. The exchange accepts BTC deposits only from the Bitcoin network.

More accurate than polls

Launched in 2021, Kalshi rose to prominence ahead of the US’s November elections.

It became a top venue for trading on 2024 political events after winning a lawsuit against the CFTC, which tried to block Kalshi from listing contracts tied to elections.

The regulator argued that political prediction markets threaten the integrity of elections, but industry analysts say they often capture public sentiment more accurately than polls.

For instance, prediction markets, including Kalshi, accurately predicted Trump’s presidential election win even as polls indicated a tossup.

“Event contract markets are a valuable public good for which there is no evidence of significant manipulation or widespread use for any nefarious purposes that the Commission alleges,” Harry Crane, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, said in an August comment letter filed with the CFTC.

As of April 9, Kalshi traders peg the odds of the US entering a recession at 68%, according to its website.

In March, Kalshi partnered with Robinhood to bring prediction markets to the popular online brokerage platform. Robinhood’s stock rose some 8% on the news.

Kalshi competes with Polymarket, a Web3-based prediction platform. Polymarket processed more than $3 billion in trading volumes tied to the US presidential election despite being off-limits for US traders.

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No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

Published

5 hours ago

April 9, 2025

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No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

United States securities laws are not flexible enough to account for digital assets, as evidenced by the parade of crypto-native companies that have tried and failed to get into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) good graces, Rodrigo Seira, special counsel to Cooley LLP, told a House Committee hearing on April 9.

The hearing, titled American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets Aligning the U.S. Securities Laws for the Digital Age, featured Seira, WilmerHale partner Tiffany J. Smith, Polygon chief legal officer Jake Werrett and Alexandra Thorn, a senior director at the Center for American Progress.

“It is clear that the current securities regulatory framework is not a viable option to regulate crypto. It fails to achieve its stated policy goals,” Seira said in his opening remarks. “[T]he idea that crypto projects can come in and register with the SEC is demonstrably false.”

Seira acknowledged that crypto promoters who raise capital for a new enterprise should be subject to federal securities laws.

“In practice, however, virtually no crypto projects have successfully registered their tokens under federal securities laws and lived to tell the tale,” he said, adding:

Projects that tried to comply with [the] SEC’s current regulatory requirements expended significant resources and effort only to fail or survive in a state of regulatory uncertainty. Moreover, registration is not a simple one-time process. Registering a token in the same manner as a stock triggers an obligation to operate as a publicly reporting company […].”

Righting the ship

In introducing the witnesses, Representative Bryan Steil, who heads the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, acknowledged regulatory roadblocks, which he said were put in place by the previous administration.

Under President Donald Trump, lawmakers are attempting to right the ship by passing sensible legislation, said Steil.

One of the first steps occurred last week when the House Financial Services Committee advanced the STABLE Act, which is designed to regulate payment stablecoins tied to the US dollar and other fiat currencies.

A month earlier, the Senate Banking Committee advanced the GENIUS Act, which aims to regulate stablecoin issuers by establishing reserve requirements and requiring full compliance with Anti-Money Laundering laws.

The next step is “advancing the second half of this agenda: comprehensive digital asset market structure legislation,” said Steil.

Representative Ro Khanna told a digital asset conference last month that a market structure bill will cross the finish line this year.

The purpose of such legislation is to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets, including their legal categories and the enforcement jurisdiction of agencies such as the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

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