Buying or renting a house is one of life’s milestone moments – within those four walls is a blank canvas that you can make your own.
It’s not just the rooms that can be decorated with your personality: the fixtures, furnishing, bookcases and kitchen gadgets all help turn the empty building into a home filled with love.
A home should be a sanctuary, but for many it can become a money pit. Labour MPs, including Earley and Woodley’s Yuan Yang, are taking action to change this.
In recent years, thanks to the disastrous budget Liz Truss tried to implement when she was Prime Minister, our economy has tanked, and people are paying the price. One of the biggest examples has been rocketing interest rates and rents.
The Office of National Statistics says that in May 2019, the average rental price in Wokingham was £1,092. This May, it has shot up to £1,431 – an increase of £343. That, coupled with the effects of inflation, has hammered households.
But there is another charge that many homeowners are facing, and it is one Labour is attempting to fix: Service charges.
These are fees paid by leaseholders to maintain communal areas, such as changing lightbulbs or repairing lifts in flats, maintaining the gardens or fixing a leaking roof. The money goes into a communal point with reserves built up to cover any major repairs while also covering the day-to-day.
It sounds like a great idea, and it is in theory. But the reality is different and is affecting residents across Wokingham borough, especially in some of the newer developments such as Shinfield Gardens in the ward I represent.
The Property Institute’s research shows the average service charge has increased 41% since 2019, meaning it is now £3,634, or £303 per month. That’s on top of a rent or a mortgage, and council tax.
The average mortgage payment is now £1,428 a month. Adding an extra £300 to that plus council tax, increased insurance premiums and inflation, it’s no wonder households are paying the price for Liz Truss’s mistakes.
Back in 2010, the Conservatives promised to fix the roof of nation’s economy. They did the opposite. The roof was well and truly broken and along the way they also broke the walls, the windows and the foundations.
No wonder this new Labour government is working hard to sort out so many issues from the ground up. This means some solutions are taking time to appear; it is often better to plan the work, get the foundations in place and then let the rebuilding commence.
Yuan Yang has been active on this issue. Some of the work is behind the scenes, including meeting developers and management companies to resolve issues faced by residents of Shinfield Gardens and Woodley’s Loddon Park.
She is also looking at the underlying issues and raised this in Parliament, asking Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner if Government’s plans would address the residents’ concerns. The response was affirmative: homeowners will have greater rights, powers and protections, including greater transparency over service charges.
Last week the Minister for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook, launched a consultation on leasehold fees. This Labour government wants to end overcharging people for services that sometimes aren’t provided, such as the playground in Shinfield Gardens that has been fenced off for months and isn’t expected to open until next year.
In the consultation, there are measures to ensure leaseholders can veto and switch managing agents. In turn, the agents must have mandatory professional qualifications – and they must inform leaseholders of major works they are planning. No more surprise bills.
The government wants to hear from leaseholders to help inform their decisions, with a view to the new measures coming into force as quickly as possible after the consultation ends.
I know from affected residents these changes are long needed.
Others may talk, but Labour is taking action.
Cllr Andrew Gray is a Labour councillor for Shinfield on Wokingham Borough Council
