“I don’t say this lightly, but I feel traumatised by this,” said Sarah*, a leaseholder who owns a one-bedroom flat in Moseley, south Birmingham. “Every time I open the front door to my house I’m expecting some frightening letter with lots of zeros on it. It has ruined my life, to be honest.”
Sarah works full-time as a school teacher, but has been forced to take up a second job to pay the spiralling bills from the management company of her building.
While she was aware of the annual service charge of around £1,400, she wasn’t prepared for the bills for a reserve fund which have risen steeply as the management company aims to secure an extra £400,000 from residents for a roof replacement and other projects.
At one point she was paying £800 a month to cover the service charge and reserve fund contributions, and then, just before Christmas, a notice asking her for almost £14,000 landed on her doorstep.
“I just did not expect any of this when I purchased my property,” she said. “I feel like it is the worst decision I’ve ever made – it has ruined me financially. I’m sure there are lots of people feeling the same as me. If the government want people to purchase property, this needs to stop.”
Leaseholders across England have urged the government to speed up its long-awaited leasehold reform, which has passed into law but much of which has yet to be implemented via secondary legislation. Labour initially promised to abolish leasehold within 100 days of taking office, but dropped this pledge because of the complicated nature of the task.
There are reports of infighting in the Cabinet Office over the exact details of the secondary leasehold reform bill, which was originally due to be published before Christmas but has yet to materialise.
The government has promised changes, including making it cheaper to extend leases, requiring greater transparency over service charges and making it easier for leaseholders to take over management, but there are questions over whether the bill will limit annual ground rent charges for existing leaseholders.
The residents of Wakefield Court, where Sarah lives, have spent 18 months and £15,000 pursuing a “right to manage” process in order to wrest control of the block from the Freshwater Group, a London-based property management company.
Residents are concerned that the latest bill is being rushed through by the company before it loses control of the block. They said issues with the roof had been known, and ignored, for years.
The Freshwater Group denied this and said it has been consulting on the work for years. “It has nothing to do with any right to manage. It is about maintaining and preserving the fabric of the building and ensuring it is weathertight, safe and insurable,” a representative said.
“They’re trying to milk us for every penny we have,” said Shabbir Mohammed, a leaseholder on the site for more than 20 years. “It’s ruining people’s lives.
“We’re paying almost 10% of the value of our property just for this reserve fund. And no one is able to sell. Leasehold reforms were promised by the Labour party. They need to be held to account. This can’t be allowed to go on.”
Across the country, desperate leaseholders report similar problems of soaring service charges and poor maintenance, and nowhere to turn for support. In Wanstead, east London, leaseholders at Buxton, Hood and Lister Lodges said they were living in limbo with a bill of about £40,000 per household for major works that had yet to start, more than five years after they were first planned.
Liz Withnall said that when she bought her two-bedroom flat in 2020, she was told the cost of the works would be about £4,500 per flat but the bill has since soared, leaving her unable to sell.
Her freeholder is Newham council, which residents allege has neglected the buildings for decades, leaving leaseholders to pick up the bill. “In the course of the five years this has been going on, I’ve had another child,” Withnall said. “So it’s now me, my partner and two children in a two-bed flat and we can’t move. We’re in a very tricky limbo situation where I see it going on for a decade. And the only reason it has got to this point is because of severe neglect for over 40 years.
“People have been begging for work to be done on the property for decades and nothing has been done. And we are beyond worried about how we will pay.”
Jonathan*, 40, who owns a leasehold flat in Pickering Close, Hackney, has been forced to move out after his ceiling developed large cracks. The management company, FirstPort, has failed to fix the roof, which has resulted in water pouring in when it rains. In a neighbouring flat, the ceiling has collapsed.
He is now paying rent and his mortgage, and has just been billed another £3,000 by FirstPort, one of Britain’s biggest property management companies that is on the government’s radar because of dozens of complaints against it.
“Every time it rains I get these spikes of anxiety because I know that someone else’s ceiling has collapsed,” Jonathan said. “It is now dangerous to live there. If leaks are going through electrical fixtures, there could be really severe consequences.
“The problem has been reported for years, but there’s still absolutely no sign of anything being done. I use the term sanctioned criminality, and I do believe that’s what it is – and this stuff is going on everywhere all the time.”
A spokesperson for Newham council said there had been delays to the work being carried out at Buxton, Hood and Lister Lodges due to environmental issues and a planning complication due to the historical nature of the buildings.
“We recognise the frustration some leaseholders have experienced in recent years and have been discussing the scope of the work required, as well as charging and repayment options,” they said. “We are now moving into formal consultation, before procurement to deliver the project. We are sorry for these unavoidable delays.”
A spokesperson for FirstPort said fixing the roof at Pickering Close had been delayed due to a disagreement with the first contractor that had been appointed.
“Scaffolding is currently being installed, and roof repairs are scheduled to begin in early February, with completion expected within four weeks,” they said. “We have not been advised that any homes are unsafe to occupy. Where interim support has been required, this has been provided, including the replacement of affected insulation.”
*Some names have been changed
