Q5a: Why are the service charges to One Housing leaseholders different to those for other leaseholders?
A: Service charges are invoiced to leaseholders by their ‘immediate landlord’. For leaseholders where One Housing (now part of the Riverside Group) is the ‘immediate landlord’ (even fully staircased ones), One Housing invoice the leaseholder. For other leaseholders, where the ‘immediate landlord’ is Central Street Properties (Pear Tree) Limited, the Managing Agent invoices the leaseholder. Leaseholders with questions on their service charges need to raise them with their relevant ‘immediate landlord’ – the Managing Agent is unable to answer questions on One Housing invoices.
The charges levied via the Managing Agent and those levied via One Housing differ for a number of reasons:
- The Managing Agent invoices the ground rent and building insurance separately; whereas One Housing charge the insurance as part of the service charge amount.
- The Managing Agent and One Housing have different financial years; meaning that items of service charge expenditure can fall in different invoicing periods (albeit this is a timing issue that resolves itself the following financial year).
- One Housing add a management charge and they also pass on a fee for a firm of accountants to examine the service charge accounts.