[rcxdude]

The lease has a market value, and a utility, and comes with a pretty robust set of rights. I think it is wrong to write it off as worthless. That said, leases have a lot of variety, and some are better than others (and one reason for a general distrust of new build properties in the UK is newer leases tend to be a lot worse for the holder than older ones, in some cases catastrophically so). Free hold is almost never going to be worse, but lease hold can be just as good for most people.

[dbdjfjrjvebd]

The biggest most important right is to buy the freehold (or extend the lease). I would rather just own a freehold...

As another poster pointed out many leaseholds today come with a share of freehold anyway.