The average service charge passed £200 a month for the first time in 2025, and is rising faster than inflation. But “too high” is not a legal argument, and a tribunal will not entertain a feeling. What moves money is a line-by-line comparison against what the same building should cost, and the parts of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 that make certain costs simply not payable.
On 15 July 2026 the government published its response on strengthening leaseholder protections, and the coverage has been about what is coming. That is worth knowing, but it is not where the money is this year. The powers on the left have existed for four decades and are used far less than they should be.
The consultation proposed raising the section 20 thresholds from £250 to £600 per leaseholder for qualifying works, and from £100 to £300 a year for long-term agreements. The government has not responded on major works and has said it will do so separately, in due course. Until it does, the thresholds are still £250 and £100 — which matters in both directions. If you are a leaseholder, works consulted against a £600 threshold were not properly consulted. If you run a building, budgeting on £600 is how you end up recovering £250 a flat on a project that cost far more.
Take last year’s service charge accounts and put the figures in. We compare each line against what a building of this size and specification typically costs, flag the outliers, and separately surface the legal points that make certain costs unrecoverable regardless of whether they were good value. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Put in the number of flats and last year’s spend by line, and the comparison builds here.
Benchmark ranges are indicative, drawn from blocks of comparable size and specification. They are a way of finding the outliers, not a valuation — a line outside the range is a question to ask, not proof of anything.
They are not equally sized and they are not equally likely, and any adviser who leads with the tribunal is selling you a fight rather than a result. In our experience the order below is roughly the order of value, which is the opposite of the order most leaseholders expect.
Insurance, cleaning, grounds, lift maintenance, security and utilities, put back out to market with a proper specification. Most block contracts have never been tested; they were inherited, rolled over, and index-linked for a decade.
The specification matters more than the price. A cleaning contract with no schedule of works cannot be compared to anything, which is precisely why it has never been challenged.
Section 20B makes a cost unrecoverable if it was demanded more than eighteen months after it was incurred and no written notice was given inside that window. Section 20 caps recovery at £250 a flat where consultation was not properly carried out.
Neither depends on the cost being unreasonable. A perfectly fair invoice, demanded late, is still not payable — which is why this route is quick when it applies and worth nothing when it does not.
A section 27A application asks the First-tier Tribunal to determine what is payable, and it can be made about costs not yet incurred — so a budget can be challenged before the money is spent, which is far better than trying to claw it back after.
It is also public, slow and adversarial, and it damages a working relationship you may need for years. We treat it as the route you take when the first two have failed, not as the opening move.
A fixed fee for the review, and a share of what we actually save you. We would rather be paid for the result than for the report — and it keeps us honest about whether there is a result to be had.
A defined fee agreed before we start, covering the accounts analysis, the benchmarking, the contract review and the legal points. You get the report whether or not it finds anything, and we will tell you plainly if the building is being run well.
A percentage of verified savings in the first year after they are delivered. Verified means the new contract is signed and the figure is in the budget — not a projection, not a quote, and not a saving that quietly reverses next year.
Where the fee is met from the service charge it is a cost like any other, and it has to be reasonable under section 19 and consulted on if it becomes a qualifying long-term agreement. We will tell you which side of those lines a proposal falls before you commit to it.
We take no commission from any contractor, broker or insurer we introduce, and we will say so in writing. A cost consultant earning a commission from the supplier they recommend is the problem, not the solution.
That every building can be made cheaper. Some service charges are high because the building is genuinely expensive to run — a tall block with a concierge, two lifts and a communal plant room costs what it costs, and squeezing it produces a cheaper building rather than a better-value one. A properly funded reserve is not an overcharge either: a building putting £400 a flat aside each year is doing something a building with no reserve will eventually do through a £15,000 major works demand instead. We will tell you when the answer is that your service charge is about right, and we would rather say that in the first meeting than discover it in month four.
A fixed fee for the review and a share of what we actually save. You will have both numbers in writing before anything starts, and the review fee is the only thing you are committed to.
Over 60 flats, and estates with multiple blocks, are quoted on the contract set rather than the unit count — ask and we will price it in a day. Where the fee is met from the service charge it is a cost like any other: it has to be reasonable under section 19, and it may be a qualifying long-term agreement requiring section 20 consultation if it runs beyond twelve months and exceeds £100 a flat a year. We will tell you which side of those lines a proposal falls before you commit to it. Pass-through costs are not ours and we do not mark them up — for reference, an EICR on a two-bed flat runs about £120–£200 nationally and 15–30% more in London.
Send us the number of flats and last year’s total — that is genuinely enough for us to tell you whether a review is worth your money. No card, no account, and we will say so if the building looks well run.
Four questions. We will come back with what we would look at, what we think is recoverable and what the review would cost.
It changes what you can require, and how fast.
Choose as many as apply.
Address or postcode district is plenty.
No charge for the conversation. If the building looks well run we will say so.
Check it over. Tapping the button opens WhatsApp with this ready — nothing has been sent yet.
Send this on WhatsAppEvery one of these has a free tool on it. None of them asks for your details before it gives you an answer.
Lease extensions, freehold purchase and Right to Manage — and an honest answer on whether to wait.
Premium estimator and the cost of waitingfrom £950 →An outsourced building safety function for freeholders, RTM companies and managing agents.
Compliance calendar — every documented check a building needsfrom £2,400 a year →What the law will cost you over a ten-year hold, before you commit to buying.
Ten-year capex forecaster with the yield impactfrom £450 →A fixed fee for the review, agreed before we start, plus 20% of verified savings in the first year. Up to twenty flats the review is £1,750; twenty-one to sixty is £2,950; above that we quote, because the work scales with the number of contracts rather than the number of flats. Verified means the new contract is signed and the figure is in the budget — not a projection and not a quote. If we find nothing, you have paid for the review and you have a documented answer to give your leaseholders, which is worth something in itself.
It depends entirely on whether the contracts have ever been tested, and most have not. The buildings where we find the most are the ones where the same insurance broker, cleaner and lift contractor have been in place for a decade with an annual index-linked uplift and no specification anyone has read. The buildings where we find least are the ones already run by a good agent who retenders. We will form a view in the first conversation and tell you which we think you are, before you pay us anything — there is no sense in taking a fee for a review that will find nothing.
Yes, and it is a common instruction. You do not need the freeholder’s permission to ask us to look at the accounts, and sections 21 and 22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 give you the right to a written summary of costs and to inspect the invoices behind it. What you cannot do unilaterally is change the contracts — so with a leaseholder instruction the output is evidence and leverage, and the routes are negotiation with the managing agent, a section 27A application, or in some cases the right to manage. We will be straight about which of those your situation actually supports.
It does not have to, and handled properly it often improves it. A competent agent has usually been asking for permission to retender for years and has been overruled on cost or inertia; an evidenced review gives them the mandate. We approach it as a cost exercise rather than an accusation, and we share the benchmarking with the agent rather than around them. Where an agent resists any scrutiny at all, that is information too — and it is usually the buildings where the largest savings sit.
Possibly not, and we would rather say so. A tall block with a concierge, two lifts and communal plant costs what it costs, and squeezing it produces a cheaper building rather than better value. A well-funded reserve is not an overcharge either — a building putting aside a few hundred pounds a flat each year is doing something the building with no reserve will eventually do through a five-figure major works demand. Use the tool above: if the lines all sit inside the ranges, be sceptical of anyone promising you a large saving.
No, and this is being widely reported wrongly. The consultation proposed raising the qualifying works threshold from £250 to £600 per leaseholder, and long-term agreements from £100 to £300 a year. The government’s July 2026 response dealt with service charge transparency and litigation costs but said it would respond separately on major works, in due course. Until it does, £250 and £100 apply. If your building consulted — or did not consult — on the basis of £600, that is worth looking at now rather than after the demand lands.
Two to four weeks for the review itself once we have the accounts and the contracts, and a further six to twelve weeks for a retender to reach signed contracts, because the market needs time to price properly and a rushed tender produces a worse answer. Where a section 20B or section 20 point exists it moves faster, since it is a documentary question rather than a market one. We will give you a dated plan at the start rather than an open-ended engagement.
Thirty-seven per cent of flats now carry a charge above the level at which lenders start to restrict. That is no longer only a cost problem; it is a value problem, and it is fixed with evidence rather than argument.
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