Too many residents have chased the dream of home-ownership only to be trapped in the nightmare of property management fees.
Over the last year, hundreds of residents across Woodley, Whitley and Shinfield have told me about the terrible service that they have received from their property management company: opaque fees, unfair charges and poor maintenance standards are the norm, rather than the exception.
This is why I have been campaigning to hold these property management companies to account over my first year in Parliament. I am part of a group of MPs called Labour for Leaseholders, who are working together to make sure that residents get a better deal from their managing companies.
While we have a long way to go, I’m glad to report some early progress. Through building campaigns with local residents, I’ve ensured that additional, historic charges imposed by Firstport on residents at Loddon Park were paused until residents had an accurate invoice detailing what they were paying for, with accounting and auditing charges scrapped for these charges. Additionally, some residents at Loddon Park secured refunds for incorrect and overpayments following intervention from my office.
I’m also proud of the fact that SANG payments (for maintenance of natural greenspaces) have been paused at Shinfield Gardens until the landowner, the University of Reading, had provided residents with more clarity about what they were paying for.
This progress doesn’t happen through parliamentary campaigning alone – it has to happen in conjunction with building strong residents’ associations who can negotiate with property managers. Over the last few months, I have been chairing community meetings between over a hundred residents and their management companies in Loddon Park and in Kennet Island. At both sessions it was great to see extremely passionate residents step forward to volunteer to be residents’ association reps.
I look forward to holding more of these sessions across the constituency. It is vital that management companies answer to residents, and I am committed to supporting residents’ associations in getting the answers they need.
There are plenty of issues that residents raise at these sessions. Some homeowners have seen their service charges rising more quickly than the rate of inflation. Sometimes, charges have risen by over 50% in one year! The lack of clear billing is another frustration, because it’s very difficult to see what you have been charged for, with costs listed under vague categories such as ‘staff costs’ or ‘maintenance work’. Residents have also shared frustrating stories of contractors doing the absolute minimum in maintenance work, which is then billed at significantly more than it should be. Finally, when residents have complained, they often haven’t been listened to or have been passed from person to person. None of this should be acceptable.
My campaigning work must only be the start of more substantial and lasting change. In March the government published the Commonhold White Paper, which will ban new leasehold flats and bring the unfair feudal leasehold system to an end for newly built properties.
Most of the new-build developments in our constituency are managed by property management companies. In Shinfield and three Mile Cross alone, there are more than 4000 residents living in affected houses. There is still time to share your experience of your management company with me, which you can do by contacting my office at [email protected].
Yuan Yang is Labour MP for Earley & Woodley
