Service Charges
What is a service charge?
Service charges are paid for by most tenants, leaseholders, shared owners, and some freeholders. They pay for additional services and day-to-day running costs that are not covered by your rent. Most of these services are provided in communal areas that are shared with your neighbours.
How do I know which service charges apply to me?
The rent letter we send out each year contains details of all the service charges you need to pay. If we need to introduce a new service charge or substantially change an existing service charge, we will let you know and give you at least 4 week’s written notice.
Guide to service charges
The table below provides information as to what each service is for. NOTE: The services listed below do not apply to all tenancies.
Alarm Charge
Use of the 24-hour call monitoring and assistance community alarm/pendants. The charge also covers the replacement of equipment.
Caretaking
All homes pay a small charge per week for a responsive caretaking service, which covers all internal and external communal areas.
The responsive charge covers any specific unscheduled caretaking work that needs to be carried out in your immediate area. This includes the removal of any graffiti, fly-tipped rubbish, abandoned cars, or other urgent works that crop up from time to time or as a result of our quarterly estate inspections.
You may also benefit from a routine caretaking service in your communal areas, which includes regular litter picking, sweeping, weeding paths, mopping floors, reporting repairs, and carrying out health and safety checks.
CCTV
Maintaining the CCTV, including repairs, maintenance, and replacement of camera and recording equipment, as well as the cost of phone and broadband lines to record the images.
Communal Area
Maintenance
Any repairs or maintenance required to maintain areas used by more than one household or home that are not covered under any other repairs and maintenance programmes. This can include replacing or repairing communal fencing, walkways, roof tiles and lighting.
Communal Electricity
Each home’s share of any communal electricity supplies. This includes hall and stairway lighting in blocks of flats, car parking areas, and private street lighting. It also covers the electricity supply to a lift if there is one where you live.
Community Room
The cost of running our community rooms. Running costs include electricity, water, heating, window cleaning and maintenance.
Door Entry System
The repair and maintenance of door entry systems.
Fire Equipment
The cost of testing and repairing fire equipment, as well as carrying out regular fire risk assessments. Equipment includes fire alarms, fire extinguishers, dry risers, and emergency lighting.
Grounds
Maintenance
This service covers regular grass cutting of communal areas from April to October, as well as maintenance of shrub beds, hedges, and any grounds maintenance improvements outside of the regular contract between November and March.
HomeSure
HomeSure is a home visiting service that helps you to stay safe and independent in your home. It complements our Independent Living Service. The service can support you with completing paperwork, such as letters and bills, refer you to other sources of support, or call on you to check that you are well.
Independent
Living Service
The Independence and Wellbeing team assist residents living in our Sheltered & Mini Group homes in many ways, including visits and calls, monitoring wellbeing and, where applicable, checking alarms and pull cords.
The team will also assist with tasks such as reporting repairs, Housing Benefit or Universal Credit claims, health and safety checks, estate inspections and applying for adaptations and/or equipment for your home. They also work with partnership agencies by assisting and guiding residents in engaging with relevant support services.
Insurance (Shared
Ownership and
Leasehold only)
Teign Housing arranges building insurance for all leasehold flats and shared ownership properties.
Building insurance claims should be reported to us in the first instance. There may be an excess payment for building insurance claims, which you may be responsible for, depending on your lease.
Leaseholders and shared owners will need to arrange contents insurance separately, as building insurance does not cover personal possessions.
You can find a copy of the building insurance on our website or by emailing insurance@teignhousing.co.uk.
Management
Charge
All homes pay this charge, which covers Teign Housing’s overheads for the administration required to provide services to you. This includes, for example, producing rent letters and statements, the staff and legal costs in setting up new contractors, and the staff costs for the administration of providing the caretaking and grounds maintenance service.
Management
Company Fee
An external property management company manages some newer housing estates. Teign Housing pays their management charges on your behalf, which are then recharged to you.
Passenger Lift
Lifts in blocks of flats are serviced and maintained every three months. This charge also covers repairs to the lift.
Sewerage
The emptying and maintenance of private sewerage and waste treatment systems, such as septic tanks.
Stairlift
If you have a stairlift in your home, each year, you will receive two service visits and two additional visits to check and maintain it.
Steplift
The cost of servicing and maintaining the steplift in your home.
TV Relay
This covers the cost of providing communal TV aerials and associated equipment.
Wash & Dry Toilet
The annual servicing, repair, and maintenance of specialist toileting equipment.
Water
Where there is a shared water meter for your scheme, this covers the water and sewerage charge from South West Water.
Welfare Calls
A regular telephone call to check your welfare and ensure the community alarm/pendants (should you have them) are in working order.
Window Cleaning
The cost of cleaning communal windows.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are service charges calculated?
Every year, we estimate the cost of providing services to our residents. The estimate is based on actual costs incurred in the previous year and how much we think the costs for this year will change.
We use these estimated costs to calculate the weekly charge, which we bill to you.
In general, we take the cost of providing the service and spread this across the number of homes that benefit from this service, so each home will pay an equal share of the cost. For example, if the shared electricity in a block of eight homes costs £160 per year, then the cost will be split equally between each home; each tenant or leaseholder will pay £20 per year or 38p per week.
Can I claim Housing Benefit or Universal Credit for service charges?
Yes. Most service charges are eligible for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit. Please note that charges for services which are specific to your home may not be eligible. This may include electricity, gas, heating costs, water/sewerage, emptying septic tanks, individual stairlifts or leisure items. You can obtain guidance on this from your local Housing Benefit department.
How do you calculate my electricity charge?
All the electricity service charges are based on the actual bills that we have received from the electricity supplier. We appreciate that there has been a large increase in some of these charges; however, this is not something that is under Teign Housing’s control.
How do you calculate my passenger lift charge?
All passenger lift service charges are based on the actual costs we have incurred for the maintenance and servicing of the passenger lift where you live.
How do you calculate my insurance charge?
In line with all insurance costs, Teign Housing has seen our buildings insurance costs increase significantly in recent years. We only pass on the charge to you which is specific to your home, and we do not pass on any administrative costs for insurance.
What is covered by the grounds maintenance charge?
This service covers regular grass cutting of communal areas from April to October, as well as maintenance of shrub beds, hedges, and any grounds maintenance improvements outside of the regular contract between November and March.
What is the management charge?
This charge covers the costs of Teign Housing providing the services and also the administration, e.g., arranging maintenance contracts, working with tenant groups, preparing accounts, and collecting charges. This is a small percentage of your overall service charge, which covers the overheads of providing services to your home.
What is the management company fee? How is this different from the management charge?
Some of our newer properties are on estates, which a property management company manages, and this charge covers the cost of this service. Teign Housing does not calculate this cost and is passed directly to the management company on your behalf.
The following frequently asked questions only apply to Leaseholders and Shared Owners:
I have a service charge reconciliation charge (or credit) on my charges this year, which I have not seen before. What is this?
Every year, we calculate how much it has cost to provide landlord services to your home. We then look at how much we charged you and identify any differences.
If we charged you less than it cost us to provide these services, we will add an extra charge to your service charges for the coming year.
If we charged you more than it cost us, we will credit this amount to your total service charges, so you have only paid for the actual cost of the services we have provided.
I am a Shared Owner, and I received a letter about my service charge reconciliation charge (or credit) in September last year. The amount on the letter is different to the amount on my rent letter. Why is this?
This only applies to Shared Owners:
The letter we sent you in September showed the total amount for the year that would be applied to this year’s service charges. As you are charged monthly, we have divided this total amount by 12, and you will receive this adjustment as part of your monthly charges. For example – if your reconciliation letter showed a charge owed of £60, then you will see a charge of £5 per month on your rent letter, which equals £60 for the full year.
What’s a Section 20 Consultation?
From time to time, we may need to carry out major work or arrange a long-term contract for your building or estate. Where the cost exceeds a certain amount, we are legally required to consult with you. This is called a Section 20 Consultation, and there are two different kinds of consultation.
- Qualifying Long-Term Agreements
Qualifying Long-Term Agreements are contracts that Teign Housing enters into for more than 12 months. Where any one Leaseholder or Shared Owner will be charged a contribution of more than £100 in a year, we will consult with you before entering into the agreement. The contracts can cover items such as utilities contracts, lift servicing, and insurance. - Major Works
Major Works are considered to be any repair, redecoration, replacement, improvement or refurbishment to the building or estate which will result in a cost of more than £250 being charged to any one home in the building or estate. The work can include planned major cyclical works, such as repainting a building, or responsive works, such as roof repairs. However, it does not include any work that the individual homeowner is responsible for carrying out.
The Leasehold Advisory Service website has further information on Section 20 Consultations.