Increasing numbers of people who own or part-own flats in the UK have faced/ are facing enormous hikes to their service charges.
In one extreme example of an individual who owns a 30% share of a housing association property, their service charge was £4200 a year, but this will rise to £16000 this year. (Source)
The managing agent, JAR, says this amount is due to 'major works' needing to be carried out, in addition to the usual maintenance of communal areas and insurance.
Another individual, who part-bought through ONE Housing has seen their £94 a month service charge bill increase to almost £650 a month, an increase of over 500%.
To make matters worse, a lot of people caught in this service charge trap are getting letters asking them for top up money because their previous service charges were estimates, some have had bills of several thousands of pounds.
Trapped in their properties...
Anyone with such MASSIVE service charge obligations is basically fucked. No one in their right mind is going to buy a property with a service charge of £7000 a year, it's just a total liability.
THat's unless they want to practically give their flats away.
I feel for these people as this used to be me, but I got out!
My own service charge before I sold my flat was £3K a year, and that was back in 2017. I dread to think what it is now. There was an issue with our biomass heating system needing HUGE sums to rectify, it wouldn't surprise me if that has now been passed on to whoever bought it.
Are these MASSIVE service charges justifiable...?
In many of the above cases IF the victims can get their hands on the service charge breakdown, they will find unjustifiable sums being spent on things like lightbulbs and cleaning.
But much of the cost will be legit, insurance is apparently a big hitter, although I don't get why it's so much more in flats compared to houses...?
My suspicion is not much care is taken when it comes to getting cheap prices for major works either, and probably not for day to day maintenance either, once these management companies have got you, they've got you, they don't give a toss.
But to my mind this is TOTALLy out of hand, just common sense tells you no one should be paying £7K a year for insuring and maintaining a property, something is VERY wrong here.
We need some legislation to bring these property management companies to heal.