The benefits will lay in the maintenance charges. By the law the freeholder has to obtain at least three quotes for any maintainence charges (gardening, cleaning, repair etc). However, the law does not state that the freeholder has to use the cheapest one.
Therefore there are quite legal backhanders and favouritism in the industry. That is why many thousand of leaseholders pay a gardener 3 thousand pounds a yeear for a tri-yearly mow, or �2000 intercom repair bills when all that was done was a quick hoover of the electric points.