Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether it is his Department's policy that housing associations should provide full annual independent audit of service charges with the report published and available to the public and fully itemised bills accompanied with validated receipts.

The Social Housing White Paper sets out clear transparency requirements for housing associations, with a clear expectation that all social housing residents should be able to know how their landlord is performing. As part of this, the Government has committed to introduce a new access to information scheme for social housing tenants of housing associations, as well as setting expectations for landlords to provide a clear breakdown of how their income is being spent.

The Government further believes that the service charge requests of all freeholders, regardless of who they might be, should be transparent and communicated effectively, and that there should be a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. A summary of leaseholders’ rights and responsibilities must currently be provided with the demand for charges.

The Government established an independent working group chaired by Lord Best, to consider transparency of fees and charges alongside the regulation of property agents. The working group published its final report to Government (see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulation-of-property-agents-working-group-report) and we are considering the report’s recommendations.