Leaseholders

Finding out about communal repairs

Since July 2007 Homes for Islington have been able to provide service charge payers with information about the day-to-day repairs carried out to their estate and the communal parts of their building three months after they have taken place. For example, in October you can request details of any repair costs to your building and estate that were carried out in July, in November we are able to give you repair costs for works carried out in August, and so on.

Previously service charge payers were only informed of this when they got their actual annual service charge bill six months after the financial year had ended. This is standard practice for leaseholders of local councils.

Repairs to the estate are known as “estate repairs” and repairs to the communal parts of the building are known as “block repairs”. Service charge payers are not consulted about these repairs, as the total estimated cost of each repair divided by the number of properties that will benefit from the work is less than £250.00.

The repair charges are the hardest costs to predict, as they are generally unplanned, responsive repairs. This service will make it easier for you to get information about a repair when it is still a recent event, rather than up to 18 months after it was carried out, which is the case at the moment. It is hoped that this information will allow you to budget your financial obligations with more certainty

For information about your estate and block repairs, contact the service charge calculation team, on 020 7527 7728, 020 7527 7813 and 020 7527 2605.