Leasehold vs freehold: what the sold price record tells you
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Each sold price record carries one letter for tenure: F for freehold, L for leasehold. That letter separates two genuinely different assets, and it is also the field most often ignored when people compare prices on a street. A leasehold flat at £250,000 and a freehold house at £250,000 have almost nothing in common beyond the number.
What the tenure field records
It records the tenure of the interest being transferred, at the moment of transfer. Freehold means the buyer owns the property and the land it stands on, indefinitely. Leasehold means the buyer owns the right to occupy for the remaining term of a lease, subject to its conditions, with the freehold held by somebody else. Commonhold exists in law as a third option and remains rare, so in practice the file describes a world of two.
What the field does not record is everything that makes one lease worth more than another. There is no lease length, no ground rent, no service charge, no review clause and no note of who manages the building. That absence is the whole problem, because those terms can move the value of an otherwise identical flat by a very large margin.
Why the two tenures never compare directly
- A freeholder pays for their own roof and their own drains. A leaseholder pays a share of the building costs through a service charge, which is a recurring cost the price record cannot show.
- A lease is a wasting asset. Every year that passes shortens the term, and below a certain point the shortening starts to bite hard on value and on mortgage availability.
- Ground rent obligations vary from a peppercorn to escalating clauses that have made some flats difficult to sell or mortgage at all.
- Freeholders control alterations on their own account. Leaseholders usually need consent, sometimes at a cost, for anything structural.
- Buildings insurance, major works programmes and managing agent fees fall on leaseholders collectively, and a large forthcoming bill can depress the price of every flat in a block at once.
The practical consequence for anyone reading a street of records is that tenure must be a filter, not a footnote. Median prices calculated across mixed tenure are the arithmetic of two markets stirred together, and they describe neither. Our UK sold price pages keep the tenure flag visible for exactly that reason.
Lease length, the missing variable
Two flats in the same block, sold in the same month, at the same size, can transact at meaningfully different prices because one had a long lease and the other did not. Nothing in the price record explains the difference, and the temptation is to treat the cheaper sale as evidence about the block rather than evidence about a lease.
The traditional rule of thumb puts a threshold around eighty years remaining, below which extension becomes markedly more expensive and lenders become more cautious. Leasehold reform legislation has been changing how extensions and enfranchisement are priced and who qualifies, with provisions arriving on their own timetable, so treat any specific rule you read as provisional and check the current position before relying on it.
Consejo
When a flat looks cheap relative to its neighbours in the sold records, check the lease before congratulating yourself on finding value. Ask the agent for the remaining term, the ground rent and the current service charge in writing. If those three answers are slow to arrive, that is itself an answer.
The anomalies that trip up comparisons
| What you see | What it may actually be |
|---|---|
| A flat recorded as freehold | A share of freehold arrangement, or an unusual title structure worth checking |
| A house recorded as leasehold | Common in parts of the North West and in some estate developments, with a ground rent attached |
| A leasehold record for a property now freehold | Tenure is recorded at the date of transfer, so a later enfranchisement never updates the old row |
| Two flats, same block, very different prices | Different remaining lease terms, different floors, or one sold with a share of freehold |
| A very low price on a leasehold flat | A short lease, an onerous ground rent, or a category B entry such as a repossession |
The share of freehold case is the one that catches people most often. A flat sold with a share in the company owning the freehold behaves like a much stronger asset than a plain leasehold flat, yet the price record may show either tenure depending on how the title is structured. If a sale sits well above the pattern for its block, that is often the reason.
Comparing like with like
- Filter to a single tenure before you calculate anything. Never blend freehold houses with leasehold flats in one median.
- Within leasehold, group by block rather than by street. Two buildings fifty metres apart can have entirely different service charge regimes.
- Bring in floor area from the energy certificate register so you are comparing price per square metre, then read valuing a home from comparable sales for the adjustment method.
- Exclude category B entries, which include repossessions and transfers to buyers who are not private individuals, as explained in Price Paid Data explained.
- Ask, for every outlier, whether tenure explains it before reaching for a market explanation.
What the record can never answer
Before committing to a leasehold purchase, the questions that decide whether the price was sensible all sit outside the price file: the remaining term, the ground rent and any review mechanism, the current service charge and its trend, the reserve fund, planned major works, the identity and record of the managing agent, and any building safety issues affecting mortgageability. The government guidance on leasehold property sets out the basic rights, and the Leasehold Advisory Service gives free advice on extensions and disputes.
Sources: tenure is one of the published fields in HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, defined in the official guidance, which covers England and Wales from January 1995. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. This article is general information, not legal advice on any particular lease.
Frequently asked questions
Does the sold price record show how long a lease has left?
No. The record shows only whether the transfer was freehold or leasehold at the time of sale. Lease length, ground rent and service charge are not published fields, which is why two flats in the same block can record very different prices with no visible explanation.
Why is a house on the record listed as leasehold?
Leasehold houses are perfectly real, particularly in parts of the North West and on some estate developments, usually with a ground rent payable to a freeholder. It is not an error in the data, and it materially changes how that sale compares with freehold houses nearby.
Is a leasehold flat always worth less than a freehold equivalent?
Not necessarily in cash terms, because location, size and condition dominate. What is true is that the two are different assets with different ongoing costs and different risks, so they should never be averaged together when you are calculating a local price level.
The record says leasehold but the owner says they own the freehold. Who is right?
Both can be. Tenure is captured at the date of transfer, so if the leaseholder later bought the freehold or joined a collective enfranchisement, the historic record still shows the tenure that applied on the day of that sale.
Related articles
HM Land Registry Price Paid Data explained
Thirty million transactions, sixteen fields, no floor area. A practical tour of the sold price dataset, its two categories and the sales it deliberately omits.
How to check what a house sold for
Sold house prices are public, free and older than you think. The three ways to look one up, the six fields you get, and the gaps nobody warns you about.