End of “fleecehold”: Will leasehold reforms bring an end to the UK's feudal system?

Britain’s feudal system of property ownership is being overhauled. It's about time, says Simon Wilson

Concept of leasehold real estate properties
(Image credit: Getty Images)

What is leasehold?

Leasehold is a form of property ownership that governs almost all flats in England and Wales, but is extremely uncommon anywhere else in the world.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.