England · Research
Leasehold vs freehold: what registered sales show
A freehold owner holds the building and the land indefinitely. A leasehold owner holds a lease that runs down year by year, usually with ground rent and a service charge on top. The price register lets us put a number on that difference: same property type, same town, two tenures. Registered sales through 2026-09-30.
Soloren LeeProperty market research
The method
National medians answer the wrong question here. Leasehold houses cluster in the North West and freehold flats in the South, so a national tenure gap mostly measures the map.
Every figure below compares the two tenures of the same property type inside the same town. Every cell in the tables has at least 30 registered sales behind it, standard sales only (HM Land Registry category A).
Freehold flats sell at a premium
In 52 towns with enough registered sales of both tenures, freehold flats sell for more than leasehold flats in 45. The median gap is +25%. London is the extreme case: 682 freehold flat sales against 113,538 leasehold, at a gap of +58%.
Part of that premium is the asset itself. A freehold flat carries no ground rent, no lease running down, and no freeholder's consent to seek. Part of it is composition: freehold flats are often share-of-freehold conversions in better stock, and the register cannot separate the two effects. Treat the gap as an upper bound on what tenure alone is worth.
| Town | County | Freehold median | Leasehold median | Gap | Sales (fh / lh) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | Greater London | £780,000 | £495,000 | +58% | 682 / 113,538 |
| Bristol | City of Bristol | £265,000 | £240,000 | +10% | 178 / 9,774 |
| Birmingham | West Midlands | £210,000 | £148,000 | +42% | 69 / 5,868 |
| Liverpool | Merseyside | £136,500 | £139,000 | -2% | 93 / 4,905 |
| Southampton | Hampshire | £255,000 | £170,000 | +50% | 53 / 4,530 |
| Bournemouth | Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | £285,000 | £210,000 | +36% | 49 / 4,096 |
| Leeds | West Yorkshire | £190,500 | £153,000 | +25% | 86 / 4,063 |
| Sheffield | South Yorkshire | £180,000 | £140,000 | +29% | 55 / 3,236 |
Leasehold houses sell at a discount
Across 223 towns, leasehold terraced houses sell below their freehold neighbours in 179. The median discount is 21%.
The cluster is geographic. Greater Manchester and Lancashire dominate the table, a legacy of the historic practice of selling houses on long leases there. Sheffield runs the other way, with leasehold terraces trading above freehold. Both directions exist in the register, so both are printed.
| Town | County | Freehold median | Leasehold median | Gap | Sales (fh / lh) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manchester | Greater Manchester | £220,000 | £200,000 | +10% | 7,658 / 4,378 |
| Sheffield | South Yorkshire | £170,000 | £215,000 | -21% | 4,897 / 3,042 |
| Bolton | Greater Manchester | £163,000 | £150,000 | +9% | 1,301 / 2,795 |
| London | Greater London | £800,000 | £572,500 | +40% | 40,761 / 2,314 |
| Oldham | Greater Manchester | £177,750 | £152,000 | +17% | 978 / 2,236 |
| Burnley | Lancashire | £120,000 | £86,000 | +40% | 657 / 2,175 |
| Wigan | Greater Manchester | £150,000 | £137,000 | +9% | 1,215 / 1,674 |
| Warrington | Warrington | £190,000 | £165,000 | +15% | 1,235 / 1,319 |
What this cannot tell you
The register carries no lease length, no ground rent and no service charge, the three numbers that price any individual leasehold. A flat with 60 years left on its lease and one with 950 sit in the same row here. The gaps above are market-level evidence, useful for reading a town. Valuing one specific property takes the lease itself.
Where to go next
Town-level medians and yearly history sit on the town pages, for example London and Manchester. Buying costs are on the stamp duty calculator.
HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, standard sales only, through 2026-09-30. This article is market analysis. It is not legal or financial advice.