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Service charges

As a Westminster City Council leaseholder find information about your service charges and how to pay them.

About your service charge

As a leaseholder, you share the costs of managing and maintaining the building your home is in with other residents. This includes insuring, maintaining and repairing the exterior and communal parts of the building and providing any other service specified in the lease.

Your service charge covers a whole range of areas associated with your home, including: 

  • minor repairs
  • building insurance
  • cleaning
  • grounds maintenance and tidying
  • communal electricity
  • concierge facilities
  • caretaking
  • graffiti removal
  • lift maintenance
  • refuse bin hire
  • pest control
  • security
  • window cleaning

Each September you will receive an actual cost statement which adjusts the estimated costs so you pay the actual costs that have been incurred for the services you receive each year.

We upkeep and monitor certain services such as communal water tanks, fire equipment, electrical circuits and switches and door entry systems.

If your home is in a block of flats on an estate, you also have to contribute towards the management and maintenance of the communal estate areas. The council is legally obliged to charge you for your share of the costs and to make sure that the charges it sets are reasonable.

You will receive an annual estimated service charge bill in March. You will need to pay this bill in two equal payments before 1 April and 1 October or in 12 equal monthly instalments (April to March), unless you have agreed a payment plan with the Leasehold Operations team.

A statement of actual spend for the previous financial year will be issued September so that you know what credit/debit is on your account based on what was estimated.

You can contact us to find out more about paying by instalments. For more information, you can also look at section seven of your leaseholder handbook.

If you would like to make payment by bank transfer please use the following details; 

Account Name: ‘City of Westminster’ 
Account Number: 00250821 
Sort Code: 30-00-00 
Reference number (please use your full 10 digit account number beginning with 8000 only) 


Find out more

Call: 0800 358 3783

Email: [email protected]

 

Related documents

Document
Major works service charge booklet
Major works service charge booklet PDF, 581.96 KB, 11 pages

 

Document
Day to day service charge booklet

 

Published: 8 January 2021

Last updated: 26 September 2023