St Martins TRA

NHG leaseholders deserve transparent service charges

As you may have seen, NHG are consulting on service charges for the St Martins Estate for the 2024/25 period.

We need to ensure service charges are transparent in the future. Please send the following email to your housing officer (probably elizabeth.brown@nhg.org.uk) to demand transparency. And please copy us in StMartinsResidentsLambeth@gmail.com

1. I am the leaseholder of property GIVE FULL ADDRESS
2. I make this request of the landlord in accordance with Section 22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985
3. The landlord has provided summaries of the relevant costs incurred for the six periods from 1^st April 2017 to 31^st March 2023
4. As the landlord of the property you are required to comply with the paragraphs 5 and 6 below.
5. You are required to provide me with reasonable facilities free of charge for inspecting the accounts, receipts and other documents supporting the summaries, and for taking copies or extracts from them.
6. You are required to make such facilities available for a period of two months beginning not later that one month after this request is made.

A person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to perform a duty imposed on them under Section 22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 commits a summary offence and is liable on conviction to pay a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale. The local housing authority has the power to bring a prosecution.

This form is based on this template letter from the Leasehold Advisory Service.

Or you can use this tool from the Social Housing Action Campaign to demand receipts. But this tool only deals with lack of receipts from the last financial year, whereas the above letter demands receipts for the whole period 2017 – 2023.

We believe most leaseholders have received refunds for the 2017 – 23 period. However, there is no transparency with respect to the actual expenditure. If we demand receipts to corroborate our service charge, as is our legal right, it will show to NHG that we will not tolerate such lack of transparency in the future and will ensure that we are only charged for things we should be paying for.

NHG are having a drop in session to discuss service charges on Thursday 11th January from 1pm to 7pm in the Scout Hut on High Trees. If you attend please mention the lack of receipts for the 2017 – 23 period. Please also ask how they will ensure transparency going forward

As this Social Housing Action Campaign video shows, campaigning for service charge transparency is hard. But we’ve made progress over the last year so success is possible.