Consulting leaseholders and section 20s
If you are a leaseholder, you may or may not be familiar with section 20 notices and how they work. Here are the important parts to note:
Under the conditions of your lease, you must contribute towards the cost of any services or work to the building your home is in and the grounds or estate around it. You do this by paying service charges. However, under Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 you must be consulted about some of the work and services.
What work and services will I be consulted about?
We will consult with you before doing the following:
- Carrying out any work that costs any one leaseholder more than £250.
- This covers repairs, maintenance and improvements to your building and estate.
- Entering into any Long-term agreements (for more than 12 months) with outside contractors for work, supplies or services where the cost to any one leaseholder will be more than £100 a year. Examples include agreements for supplying goods or services (such as cleaning) and agreements for maintenance work (such as day-to-day repairs).
- Carrying out any work under a long term agreement where the work will cost any one leaseholder more than £250.
What are section 20 Notices?
Stevenage Homes will send notices to every leaseholder who must pay towards work or services, and to any recognised tenants associations (RTA’s) which represent them. These notices are called section 20 notices. They contain information about what the council plans to do and give you the opportunity to take part in a process of consultation. Our Home Ownership Services Team sends out the notices on behalf of the council.
Exceptions to the rule
If your property was purchased under the Right to Buy scheme within the last five years, the landlord cannot charge more than the amount that was listed in the Section 125 Offer Notice (listed as services or anticipated repairs and improvements) other than adding costs for inflation.
Also, if we need to carry out urgent work such as repairing a leaking roof, we can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to be exempt from consultation regulations.
Paying for the work
Providing we have consulted with you correctly, the conditions of your lease, mean that you must pay your full share of the cost of work. You will be invoiced separately for works costing you more than £250. In some cases the invoices to leaseholders can be for hundreds or even thousands of pounds. If you are having financial difficulties, please talk to us and we will do our best to help.
If you would like more information on section 20 notices, or on major works to leasehold properties please contact our Home Ownership Services Team on 01438 242 901
Further information
You can download a factsheet on section 20 notices by clicking below: