Service Charges & Accounts
In such complex residential and mixed use properties, the Service Charge will reflect the costs of providing the range of services and maintaining the common parts of a particular development.
The services for which each owner contributes by means of the service charge will normally be governed by the terms of the lease.
The service charge is an estimate prepared each year of the running costs of the development. These could include for example:
- Landscape Maintenance – from cutting the grass, maintaining communal gardens, watering and sweeping. This is particularly important in developments with commercial properties such as bars, restaurants or retail outlets that have communal areas accessible to non-residents
- Heating and cleaning of communal internal areas, including any onsite leisure facilities
- Window Cleaning – specific to each development, but would typically include all external windows as well as internal windows in communal areas
- Lift Maintenance
- Fire Equipment Maintenance
- General Repairs and Maintenance
- Buildings Insurance – in the case of apartments, full buildings insurance is required under the terms of the lease to cover the risks relevant to the development. Standard insurance risks might include fire, explosion, lightning, aircraft, terrorism, storm or flood, sprinkler leakage, subsidence or landside etc.
- Bank Charges and Audit fees
- Management fee and salaries of any onsite staff
