Leasehold Service Charges: What to Check Before You Buy and How to Challenge an Unfair Bill
Published October 2026. Service charges are a permanent cost of leasehold ownership, and the decisions that drive them are often taken by someone other than the leaseholder who pays. This guide explains what to check before you exchange contracts, how to challenge a charge once you own the property, and what the announced reforms will and will not change. Why Service Charges Deserve Your Attention When you buy a leasehold flat, you are not simply buying a home. You are agreeing to share the cost of running the building around it: the roof, the lift, the communal hallways, the buildings insurance, the cleaning, the gardens, the managing agent’s fee and, very often, a contribution towards a fund for future major works. Those costs are recovered from you through the service charge. Service charges can leave leaseholders paying for decisions over which they have limited individual control. Where the building is owned by a third-party landlord, the landlord or its managing agent decides wha...
