Several constituents of mine in Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton have been contacting me recently regarding inflated housing maintenance and service charges. This is an issue which is affecting many people in our borough and across the country and it is important to me with one of my priorities at the general election being to fight for decent homes.
The underlying problem with expensive service charges is that, while the charge is accepted as a way of facilitating general repairs and maintaining common facilities like shared carparks, there can be a lack of control over the services tenants receive, including rising costs and the level of quality of the services.
In our manifesto at the recent general election, Labour pledged to enact the package of Law Commission proposals along with taking further steps to ban new leasehold flats, ensure commonhold is the default tenure, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges, address the injustice of ‘fleecehold’ private housing estates, and end unfair maintenance costs.
In September, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning spoke on this subject in Parliament on behalf of the government. He said that:
“The Government are committed to bringing the injustice of ‘fleecehold’ private housing estates and unfair maintenance costs to an end. We intend to consult publicly on the best way to achieve that. In the interim, we will move to implement the new protections against unfair charges that were contained in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.”
Please be assured that as your local MP I will continue to fight for constituents on concerns and queries like this which matter to you. If you have a specific issue with regards to service charges yourself – please contact me at jim.mcmahon.mp@parliament.uk and my constituency team can deal with it.
Jim McMahon OBE MP 