Service charge paying residents should have received their estimated day to day annual service charge bill (invoice) for April 2025 to March 2026 this month.
Lambeth’s Service Charge financial year runs between 1 April and the following 31 March. Before the start of each financial year, Lambeth send an estimated invoice for day-to-day service charge costs that they expect to spend during the year. We recommend you keep all service charge bill paperwork received from Lambeth.
All service charge invoices have a unique nine-digit invoice number. This means that you can make payments directly against that invoice, and see which year the payments or adjustments relate to. You will also have a nine-digit account number. Your account balance is the sum of the balances of all the invoices on your account, for day-to-day service charges and major works.
On page 1 the bill will show you the invoice total for the year after an invoice number. If you don’t quote the bills specific invoice number with your payment, the payment will be automatically allocated to the oldest invoice on the account, which may not be the invoice you want to pay off.
You can pay invoices in full as you receive them. Your lease also allows you to pay your day-to-day service charge estimate in 12 equal monthly instalments, April to March, on the first day of each month.
Lambeth’s website has a guide to service charge bills if you would like to find out more.
Why has our buildings insurance increased so much?
Over the last 5 years, buildings insurance for PRE leaseholders has almost doubled. The lease requires Lambeth to keep the buildings insured for leaseholders, and without this, properties would be difficult to mortgage and sell.
The leasehold building insurance market is in a so-called “hard market” phase with:
- premiums rising significantly
- the withdrawal of capacity with insurers leaving the marketplace
- restrictions in cover being introduced
- increased excesses and difficulty procuring insurance for leasehold flats
Some of this is due to inflation affecting costs of construction materials and labour, and in turn the costs of claims and of property reinstatement values. Some of this market hardening is due to new building safety standards for social (but not private) landlords, introduced by the previous government, which councils are legally obliged to deliver, but were given no additional funding for.
This has made social housing leasehold unattractive for insurers and many have left the market. For example, Southwark Council had zero responses to their last insurance tender, after their long-time insurer (Zurich) decided to pull out of the social housing leasehold market. Zurich eventually agreed to extend their cover, at double the rate, in what was essentially a market monopoly.
Lambeth received bids from two suppliers, and chose one (Arthur J Gallagher/NIG Insurance) based on cost and policy cover. However, costs have still gone up significantly, and are expected to keep rising each year with inflation.
Several London authorities have written to the Secretary of State to raise concerns about the current conditions of the leasehold insurance market.
Find out more about PRERA’s work on service charge bills by clicking here.
Lambeth Homeowners Association
LHA ran an in-person meeting on Saturday 22nd on Lambeth Bills (including ‘day-to-day’ service charges) and the issues faced by Lambeth service charge paying residents. For anyone that missed it, they recorded the whole session and have put it online.
A recording of the meeting is available on YouTube here.
You can also see the slides here which contain template emails and useful links.
Antony started the session with an overview of some of the recent accomplishments of the LHA, specifically highlighting the press coverage they’ve received in Brixton Buzz, Brixton Blog/Bugle, and on the BBC (both online and on TV).
Next, Bruce talked through an example of a Section 20 letter for Major Works that a resident had received and described why it’s important to respond to these, and some important points that you should highlight. The details and a sample response are available in the slides.
Alasdair then gave a presentation about day-to-day service charges, with practical examples of how to get more information about your charges, and how to effectively dispute them. He explained how you can send a Section 21 and Section 22 request for information, which Lambeth will be legally required to respond to. Templates of these requests can be found in their slides.