A London Assembly Housing Committee has called for the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to cap service charges for shared-ownership homes in London.<\/p>\n
The committee said service charge are \u201csoaring\u201d, as the group called for the Greater London Authority to research into potential models for capping service charges in new-build shared ownership.<\/p>\n
There are also calls for the Mayor to improve transparency around these costs, which are regularly seen as \u201cfraudulent and price-gouging\u201d.<\/p>\n
Over a third (36.1%) of the capital\u2019s homes are leasehold, while people are spending a median average of \u00a33,912 per year (\u00a3326 per month) on their service charge.<\/p>\n
Sem Moema, former chair of the London Assembly Housing Committee, said: \u201cLondoners are being hit hard by increasing service charges, often with no clear idea of what they are receiving in return for their money.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWorse still, there is no end in sight for these soaring costs, with freeholders and housing associations telling us that service charges are expected to increase further.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaseholders deserve transparency about their costs, but they also need action to bring their expenses down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are calling on the Mayor to do his part, by capping service charges on new shared ownership homes and committing to drive down service charges through his new London Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee called on the government to legislate to give social renters the same rights as leaseholders in terms of access to full service-charge statements and invoices.<\/p>\n
It said developers should have to submit to their local authorities steps they have taken to ensure maximum lifespan of building components to maximise value-for-money for leaseholders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A London Assembly Housing Committee has called for the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to cap service charges for shared-ownership homes in London. The committee said service charge are \u201csoaring\u201d, as the group called for the Greater London Authority to research into potential models for capping service charges in new-build shared ownership. There are also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-second-home"],"yoast_head":"\n