Right to Manage company formations reached a record high last year as more leaseholders took control of the management of their buildings.
New research from property management firm Placekeeper Management shows 986 RTM companies formed in 2025. That represents a 79% increase in six years.
The trend has continued into 2026. Some 578 RTM companies formed during the first half of the year, putting activity on course to surpass last year’s record.
Meanwhile, the research points to a widening gap between RTM activity and the wider housing market.
Housing completions fell from 214,290 in 2019 to 170,390 in 2025, a decline of around 20%. Management company formations have also dropped.
They peaked at 2,180 in 2018 before falling to 1,543 last year. That was the lowest figure since 2013.
By contrast, RTM formations have continued to rise.
Placekeeper has launched an RTM Index to track the trend. It compares RTM formation activity with housing completions against the long-term average.
The index increased from 69 in 2019 to 155 in 2025. As a result, RTM activity relative to housing completions has more than doubled in six years.
Placekeeper said the figures suggest growth is increasingly coming from leaseholders in the existing housing stock rather than new development.
Trevor Adey, director at Placekeeper Management, said: “The most striking finding isn’t simply that RTM formations have reached a record high, but that activity continues to accelerate at a time when housebuilding levels and management company formations have fallen.
“The data suggests resident-led management is becoming a more significant feature of the UK’s existing housing stock, whether that reflects greater awareness of leaseholder rights, increased scrutiny of service charges, or wider changes in residential governance.
“For managing agents, this should be a wake-up call. Standards of transparency, communication and value for money that might once have gone unquestioned are now being scrutinised more closely than ever. Agents who don’t adapt and improve services risk losing the buildings they manage to their own residents.”
The analysis uses Companies House incorporation data and Office for National Statistics housing figures. It covers RTM and management company formations alongside housebuilding activity between 2010 and 2026.
