Leasehold is probably the most misunderstood and certainly the most complicated form of ownership and tenure available in the uk. At its simplest, a leasehold is a legal contract agreed between a landlord (the freeholder) and a tenant allowing a tenant to occupy a property, with the tenant paying a periodic rental fee to the landlord.

There are a several types of leasehold in existence in the UK today. The greatest sources of confusion is the distinction between long leases and short leases; and the various types of short lease.

The various forms of leasehold available are:

• Long Leases
• Short Leases
  • Regulated Tenancies
  • Protected Tenancies
  • Statutory Tenancies
  • Shorthold Tenancies
  • Assured Tenancies
  • Assured Shorthold Tenancies

After recent changes in legislation to address real world problems of availability of rented accommodation, some types of short lease tenancies are rarely (if ever) created today but are still in force where existing contracts exist. There is another type of contract available called a License To Occupy for the purposes of landlords renting property out to tenants.

There is no precise legal definition to distinguish a long lease from a short lease. As a general rule any lease that has 21 or more years of the lease contract period remaining is termed a long lease and anything shorter is termed a short lease. Why then do we bother to make a distinction between a long and a short lease? you may ask. In practice, there are important differences in the tenants rights and obligations when they are a long lease tenant as opposed to being a short lease tenant. A long lease with say 10 years remaining before the lease contract expires could be called a short lease in practice. There is a lot of muddled ground where the lease expiry period is somewhere around the boundary between short and long leases. Adding to the confusion is that tenants may have the right to stay in possession of their properties beyond the period of their lease - depending on the type of lease contract agreed. In which case, for tenants with a short lease, it is almost like having a long lease.

While most houses are purchased freehold, most flats are leasehold. At one time, all flats were leasehold. With the recent legislation allowing people to purchase flats freehold and the very recent introduction of Commonhold legislation, you may find leasehold becoming less common.