Prince William has agreed to end the last feudal restrictions on land ownership in parts of his hereditary Duchy of Cornwall estate after decades of complaints from residents.
The Prince of Wales will allow tenants in two of the most environmentally sensitive areas of his 55,000-hectare (135,000 acres) estate the right to buy the freehold to their homes for the first time.
Residents of central Dartmoor, the national park, which is the duchy’s largest landholding, and the Somerset village of Newton St Loe, near Bath, will be given the new right under the 2024 Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act, when secondary legislation is introduced by the government to bring it into force.
But the heir to the throne, who has faced criticism after it was revealed that his and King Charles’s property empires are earning millions from cash-strapped public bodies and charities, has refused to extend the freedom to duchy tenants in Scilly.
Leaseholders on the islands off the Cornish coast will now be able to buy much longer 990-year leases for their properties, which the duchy argues is almost as good as the freehold. But the duchy will have the right to buy them back to manage the supply of housing on the islands, under a deal similar to the one that will apply to 5,000 National Trust properties in the government reforms.
The estate, whose profits gave William an income of £23.6m in the year to 31 March, has not informed its tenants about the changes yet but officials have confirmed the outline of the deal to the Observer.
The Duchy of Cornwall, which stretches across 23 counties, was created in 1337 and the laws governing residents and tenants on its land are complex.
The estate resisted efforts to bring it in line with the rest of Britain under the then Prince Charles, demanding exemptions from earlier leasehold reform legislation for Dartmoor, Newton St Loe and Scilly on the grounds of environmental sensitivities and their historic ties with the crown.
But the last Conservative government, which passed the primary legislation, and the new Labour administration, which intends to implement the secondary legislation, both appear to have put pressure on the duchy to change its approach.
Tenants contacted by the Observer gave a cautious welcome to the reforms after years of complaints about exorbitant grounds rents, refusals to extend leases, or the excessive cost of such deals.
Alan Davis owns a house on the edge of the Garrison – a historic fortification built on the Scilly island of St Mary’s towards the end of Elizabeth I’s reign – that has only 35 years left on a 99-year lease.
He welcomed the chance to extend it to 990 years if the cost is not prohibitive and any buyback is fair. “It will depend if the duchy is willing to pay the commercial rate for a freehold house to buy back our leasehold,” he said.
The details still have to be confirmed but the National Trust said it expected to pay market value if it exercised its right to buy back leases on its properties, and assumed the price would be determined by a formal independent valuation.
Davis, 82, a long-term critic of the duchy, accuses William and his staff of milking the islands. “They take out ground rent… [but] the leaseholder does the work and pays for maintaining the property. This can be from £1,500 to £7,000 per annum,” he said.
A duchy spokesperson said: “The Isles of Scilly are England’s only archipelago and, as such, being comprised of a number of small islands at a significant distance from the mainland, have a unique community and economic makeup. Key to this is the limited availability of, and competing demands on, land and property.
“We will fulfil our obligations and the recommendations as set out in the leasehold reform bill. We take our responsibility on the Isles of Scilly seriously and are working to analyse the bill and await secondary legislation, which will provide further detail and clarity.”
