London & Quadrant Housing Trust
The petition of residents in Acton Gardens in Ealing Central and Acton
Declares that residents have growing concerns about the year-on-year increases of their service charges being requested by London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) without providing transparent and timely responses on the reasons for these increases; notes that this has been compounded annually by the lack of answers from L&Q, resulting in stress and continued frustration on the growing scale of concerns residents are facing, including items such as: repairs to security systems which aid to reduce the growing ASB in the area, sinking fund cost spiralling out of control, faulty energy and hot water supplies that continue to occur, lack of clear service level agreements and communication processes to manage residents repairs and issues.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the difficulties faced by Acton Gardens residents, and leaseholders who have been fighting for increased transparency of service charge accounts and expenditure and take immediate action to ensure that leaseholders who seek transparency of service charge accounts are granted that transparency.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Dr Rupa Huq, Official Report, 13 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 662.]
[P002815]
Observations from the Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean):
The Government are committed to creating a fairer and more transparent housing system that works for everyone. Leasehold and commonhold reform supports our mission to level up homeownership by addressing power imbalance at the heart of the leasehold system.
We believe very strongly that any fees and charges should be justifiable, transparent, and communicated effectively and that there should be a clear route to redress if things go wrong. The law is clear that variable service charges must be reasonable and, where costs relate to work or services, the work or services must be of a reasonable standard. Leaseholders may make an application to the First-tier Tribunal in England to make a determination on the reasonableness of their service charges.
Many landlords and managing agents already demonstrate good practice and provide significant and relevant information to leaseholders. However, too many landlords are failing to provide sufficient information or clarity to leaseholders. The Government established an independent working group, chaired by Lord Best, to raise standards across the property agent sector and which considered how fees such as service charges should be presented to consumers.
The group reported back to Government in July 2019. To improve the transparency of service charge information for consumers, the group suggested that the Government should consider consulting on the detail and use of a new mandatory standardised charges form for both leaseholders and freeholders, and should also explore standardising both the information that is presented and the form—the full report is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulation-of-property-agents-working-group-report.
The Government recognise that the existing statutory requirements do not yet go far enough to enable leaseholders to identify and challenge unfair costs. We will take action to support and empower leasehold homeowners.
Increased transparency will help leaseholders better understand what they are paying for, make it harder for landlords to hide unreasonable or unfair charges, and enable leaseholders to challenge more effectively their landlord if the fees are unreasonable.
The Social Housing Regulation Bill gives the Regulator of Social Housing new standard-setting powers relating to the provision of information to residents by registered providers, such as London & Quadrant Housing Trust. We will also be introducing an Access to Information Scheme that will enable tenants of private registered providers to request information from their landlords in a similar way to the Freedom of Information Act.
We have also strengthened the Housing Ombudsman Service, so social housing residents have somewhere to turn when they are not getting the answers they need from their landlords. The Social Housing Regulation Bill will ensure that the power for the Ombudsman to issue a code of practice on complaint handling is set out explicitly in statute alongside duties to consult on any code issued and monitor the compliance of member landlords with the code. This will emphasise and add weight to the importance of good complaint handling practices. In addition, we have changed the law so that residents can now complain directly to the Ombudsman instead of having to wait eight weeks while their case is handled by a local MP or other ‘designated person’.