Property Service Charges

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing this important debate. Across the country, and certainly across my constituency, leaseholders are trapped in a system that too often leaves them feeling powerless. They face spiralling service charges, opaque management practices and little or no accountability from the agents or freeholders who control their lived environments.

In my experience, these problems are particularly acute for elderly and more vulnerable residents, many of whom live in retirement developments and depend on the professionalism of those entrusted with managing their estates. Far too often, what they experience is mismanagement, confusion and financial anxiety. To illustrate the scale of the issue, I want to draw on two cases from my Surrey Heath constituency that encapsulate the national failings: first, Mytchett Heath, a retirement complex managed by Cognatum Estates, a not-for-profit developer and operator based in the south and south-east of England; and secondly, the Courtyard in Camberley, a residential building currently undergoing cladding remediation—in effect, two scandals rolled into one.

At the Courtyard, one of my constituents, Sharon, has seen her annual service charges rise by £1,394 between 2017 and 2025, and has paid a total of £22,727 over that period on top of council tax. In 2021 alone, her bill rose by 38% with no clear explanation. When she sought answers from Pinnacle Property Management, the managing agent, the responses were slow, incomplete and unhelpful. She has been left anxious, powerless and deeply mistrustful of those managing her building.

At Mytchett Heath, residents face an equally troubling pattern, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) for supporting me in my investigations of the organisation. Maintenance costs appear without warning or justification. Worse still, the managing fee at Mytchett Heath—the basic charge that residents pay for estate management—has increased by 75% since 2019, at an average rate of 10.7% per year. As all of us know, that far exceeds inflation, wage growth and pension increases, yet residents have been given no clear explanation of how those rises are justified, nor any transparent breakdown of where their money is going.

There is no effective oversight mechanism for managing agents or freeholders. Although residents can, in theory, appeal to the industry ombudsman, many are deterred from that process because it is too long, too complex and often too costly. What is particularly concerning for my residents at Mytchett Heath is that the managing director of Cognatum Estates, Mr John Lavin, also sits on the board of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers—the very trade body that purports to regulate and uphold standards across the sector. That is a textbook case of marking one’s own homework.

Elderly residents, meanwhile, are left financially trapped, emotionally exhausted and with nowhere to turn. The human cost of all this is immense: stress, anxiety, depleted savings and a complete loss of peace of mind. These are retirees spending their later years poring over spreadsheets and unanswered emails, when they should be enjoying the comfort and security they have worked for.

Back in April, I met the board of Cognatum Estates to hear its side of the story. I was told that some residents were “encouraging others to protest”. In a recent letter from Cognatum’s chief executive officer, I heard that complaints were, in fact, part of a

“co-ordinated campaign to…denigrate the organisation.”

These are not political agitators—I should know, because I have met enough of them—but elderly homeowners who are asking basic questions about the bills they receive. They deserve answers, not accusations.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister three simple questions. When can leaseholders—particularly elderly residents—expect to be able to receive clear, itemised explanations of how their service charges are calculated? Secondly, when managing agents fail to communicate or justify large increases, such as the 70% rise in Mytchett Heath’s managing fee since 2019, what meaningful sanctions might they face? Finally, will the Government review the governance of trade associations such as the Association of Retirement Housing Managers to ensure genuine independence and oversight, rather than industry insiders marking their own homework?