Service charges

Service charges are payments that a tenant or leaseholder must pay for the cost of services provided by a landlord. Your landlord must show you how the charges have been calculated, they must be reasonable and you have the right to dispute them.

What a service charge covers

Service charges cover communal or shared services to your building and sometimes the surrounding estates, for example: cleaning/caretaking; gardening; door entry systems; lifts; communal lighting; insurance and management fees. For leaseholders they will include maintenance and repairs to parts of the property or estate that are not outlined as your responsibility. Service charges can be fixed or variable.

Information about what your service charges include and how they are calculated must be set out in your tenancy agreement or lease.

Right to information

Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, S21 and S22, you can request a summary of the costs for the past 12 months or the last accounting year and your landlord must provide this within one month or within six months of the accounting year, whichever is later. You also have a right to inspect accounts, receipts and invoices relating to the service charge summary and to take copies of these. These must be provided within one month of the request and made available for two months.

Right to be consulted for leaseholders

You have the right to be consulted if your landlord wants to carry our major works funded by your service charge. There are specific requirements for this consultation, which are set out in section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

How to dispute service charges

If you think your service charges are unreasonable, you can apply to the First Tier Property Tribunal to challenge this.

If you have complaints about the communication, transparency, or fairness of service charges, you can take this to the Housing Ombudsman. To do this, you have to have gone through your landlord’s complaints process first.