Decision

Legal & General Affordable Homes (5062) - Regulatory Judgement: 30 July 2025

Updated 30 July 2025

Applies to England

Our Judgement

This judgement concerns an organisation that is designated a for-profit registered provider. 

The registered provider is not at the head of its group. It is a subsidiary organisation within a larger group of connected companies. The registered provider is not intended to operate as a standalone entity in the group structure. It requires the ongoing support of related parties to fulfil its functions and / or meet its objectives. The nature of this support is described in this judgement. 

This judgement concerns the registered provider only and does not represent an assessment of the non-registered entities within the group. 

	Grade/Judgement	Change	Date of assessment
Consumer		Not assessed yet
Governance	G1* Our judgement is that the landlord meets our governance requirements.	Assessed and Unchanged	July 2025
Viability	V1* Our judgement is that the landlord meets our viability requirements and has the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios	Assessed and Unchanged	July 2025

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Legal & General Affordable Homes Limited (Legal & General) following a stability check completed in July 2025.

The stability check used information from the landlord’s regulatory returns and we reviewed a range of documents provided by Legal & General to form a judgement about how well the landlord is delivering the viability outcomes of our Governance and Financial Viability Standard.

In assessing the landlord’s governance grade as part of the stability check, our work was limited to verifying that the information contained in the landlord’s regulatory returns did not appear inconsistent with the landlord’s existing published governance grade.

Prior to this regulatory judgement, the landlord’s most recent governance and viability grades were G1* and V1*, which were issued in September 2024 following a stability check. We have not yet assessed this landlord against the consumer standards.

Summary of the decision

Based on the relevant information and evidence we reviewed in carrying out the stability check, we verified that the information contained in Legal & General’s regulatory returns did not appear inconsistent with its existing published governance grade. We have therefore concluded the landlord’s grade is unchanged and remains a G1* grade for Legal and General.

Based on evidence gained from the 2025 stability check review, we have assurance that Legal & General’s financial plans are consistent with, and support, its financial strategy. Legal & General has an adequately funded business plan and sufficient security in place.

The majority of Legal and General’s funding is provided via both debt and equity from its parent entity, and access to liquidity has been strengthened by the arrangement of private bank facilities. Financial metrics indicate that Legal and General will maintain capacity to service its financing obligations, and the results of stress testing indicate that it has the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios.

Legal & General’s business plan assumes a material volume of receipts from selling homes. However, both its acquisition and sales programmes involve entities within the wider Legal & General group of companies, reducing the level of risk that could otherwise be associated with cashflows of this type. We have therefore concluded the landlord’s grade is unchanged and remains a V1* grade for Legal and General.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Legal & General  is a for-profit registered provider. It was registered in December 2018. It is a private company limited by shares and its ultimate parent is Legal & General Group plc, a multinational financial services company. It manages housing for social rent and shared ownership only. 

Legal & General  manages around 3,500 social housing homes and operates across a large number of local authority areas with concentrations of stock in the South East, Midlands and North West. 

Legal & General  employs no staff. For the year ended 31 December 2024, it reported a turnover of £44.2m. It plans to acquire around 900 homes by 2029.

Our role and regulatory approach

We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.

We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered provider of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations).

We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment.

We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page. 

We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. In Depth Assessments (IDAs) were one of our previous assessment processes, which are now replaced by our new inspections programme from 1 April 2024. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes.

The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.

For more information about our approach to regulation, please see Regulating the standards. 

Further information

• Regulating the standards

• Regulatory standards for landlords