A recent article in Property Week written by Christopher Hedley, a director of IPD, about Occupiers and Management highlighted the general dissatisfaction of tenants with how their managing agents and landlords deal with service charges.
The majority felt that the large increases in service charge costs could not be justified and that control and communication of costs by managing agents was poor - so much so that fewer than 10% of occupiers felt they were getting value for money.
The tenants also expressed major concerns over exceptional expenditure and improvement costs. At best these create unpredictable variations in service charges year on year and at worst may be outside the scope of recoverable service charge expenditure.