Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to help ensure that service charges for leaseholders are (a) fair and (b) transparent.

The Government believes very strongly that service charges should be transparent and communicated effectively. The law is clear that service charges and any increase in costs must be reasonable and, where costs relate to work or services, the work or services must be of a reasonable standard. A summary of leaseholders’ rights and responsibilities must also be provided with the demand for charges. The Government believes that there should be a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. Leaseholders may make an application to the First-tier Tribunal for it to make a determination on the reasonableness of their service charges.

We established an independent working group chaired by Lord Best to raise standards across the property sector, which also considered improvements to the transparency of service charges. The working group published its final report to Government (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulation-of-property-agents-working-group-report) and we are considering the report’s recommendations.