Richard recently met with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, to discuss the charging of estate management fees to home owners.
Estate management fees are imposed on local residents in some new housing developments to cover the cost for upkeep of local facilities such as play areas or to keep the grass verges cut or to maintain ponds or other aspects of local landscaping. The responsibility for these items used to pass to the local authority in many cases with the costs covered by local Council Tax. Now however an increasing number of residents find they are paying their Council Tax and then also paying a Service Charge on top.
Richard Fuller MP said:
I have had a series of issues raised with my by quite a large number of local councillors, which indicates estate management fees are a widespread concern. In particular, Cllr Jim Weir in Great Denham and Cllr Sarah Gallagher in New Cardington have spearheaded local efforts in Bedford Borough, building on a quite considerable amount of information from their community surveys and research conducted by local residents. The bewildering array of different companies that manage really quite small areas of larger developments adds to the general confusion for residents.
The first issue I feel needs to change is that the legal rights for freeholders are more limited than for leaseholders. The law needs updating.
Secondly, the level of information disclosure by estate management companies is too limited. Annual accounts are delivered late and resident requests for more detailed information on charges are often do not get a response.
It is hard for freeholders to seek redress via the Ombudsman service meaning people are left only with the option to pay up. If there are disputes there is too much leeway for control over a sale of a property until assessments – even disputed ones – are paid in full.
I was able to draw on specific examples to make the case to Michael Gove who encouraged me in my efforts. I will now broaden my lobbying efforts both to seek a debate in Parliament on this issue and for in the upcoming King’s Speech to include legislation to tackle estate management fees abuse.
