Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to regulate service charges by management agencies on leaseholders and freeholders.

This Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and making sure that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service.

By law, variable service charges must be reasonable and, where costs relate to works or services, the works or services must be of a reasonable standard. Leaseholders may make an application to the appropriate tribunal to challenge the reasonableness of their service charges. We are committed to better protecting and empowering leaseholders by giving them more information on what their costs pay for, and removing barriers to challenge when things go wrong.

For those homeowners living on freehold estates, we are also committed to making the management companies more accountable to their freeholders.

We are due to bring forward further leasehold reforms later in this parliament.