Types of service charge

Variable service charges

These apply to:

• Assured shorthold tenants

• Preserved rights tenants

• Right to Buy leaseholders after the first five years of owning a home

• Shared owners.

To work out the cost of service charges for any year, we look at how much it actually cost two years before to provide the services. We then adjust your rent account once we know the actual cost of the services we’ve provided. Your rent bill may go up or down as a result.

Fixed service charges

These are paid by tenants with assured shorthold tenancies. The charges are worked out each year by looking at previous costs and predicting the costs for the year to come.

Fixed service charges will go up or down once each year, usually at the same time we work out your rent for the coming year. This means your new service charges will be payable from the first Monday in April.

Right to Buy and Right to Acquire home owners

If you are a Right to Buy or Right to Acquire leaseholder of freeholder, your service charges will only increase in line with the retail price index figure set by the Government for the first five years.

Your service charges for the five years will have been set when you bought your home. After five years, your service charges will be worked out in line with whatever is written in your lease.