Copy article

Flat owners to get new rights to faster, more reliable broadband under government plans

ended 15. December 2025

Flat owners in England and Wales are set to get better access to fast and future-proofed broadband, under new proposals announced overnight.

The consultation is looking at proposed rights for flat-owning leaseholders to request a gigabit-capable broadband connection from their freeholder that cannot be unreasonably refused.

Currently, leasehold flat owners don’t have a formal right to request a gigabit-capable broadband connection, leaving them hamstrung by slower speeds, and many face extra challenges as they are not able to coordinate or agree to a rollout to the buildings they live in.

  • Is this a positive move that could add value to flats that have dire broadband? 
  • Will this actually speed up installations in big blocks, or just shift disputes into a new legal process?
  • Should renters get the same right directly, rather than relying on a leaseholder landlord to apply on their behalf?

Any other thought, whizz them across.

1 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Copy

Kundan Bhaduri
Entrepreneur, Investor and Landlord at The Kushman Group
This peculiar British talent for creating elaborate solutions to problems caused by previous elaborate solutions is mind blowing. It is of course the freeholders who are preventing gigabit broadband getting to leaseholders, because apparently our feudal system needs another layer of statutory obligation to make it work properly. It's like Starmer's team wants you to install ejector seats in your car, because they cannot fix the brakes.

The fundamental issue is not broadband access but the leasehold system itself, which leaves millions of homeowners as tenants in their own properties. Rather than tackling this structural absurdity, the government prefers to bolt on new rights and procedures, creating fresh opportunities for legal disputes between leaseholders and freeholders over technical specifications and installation costs. What we actually need is commonhold reform that gives flat owners genuine control over their buildings, not yet another consultation that will produce nothing.