Service charges

We provide a range of communal services to our properties, we cover these costs and then recharge them to tenants, shared owners and leaseholders, we do not make any profit collecting these charges.

Annual service charges vary depending on your type of home and whether you're a social tenant, shared owner or leaseholder.

The charges are estimated by looking at how much services have cost for a property in previous years and then projecting a cost for the coming financial year. 

Annual service charges are either fixed (your payment is a set amount regardless of the year's actual costs) or variable (your payment changes depending on the year's actual costs)

Service charge cycle

Tenants

Before each financial year begins, we estimate the costs to keep your communal areas, estates and neighbourhoods maintained and safe.

We do this by looking at planned work, general maintenance (such as ground and cleaning), inflation, and other additional costs as each estate, block, and home varies.

We will send you a service charge notification in February each year.

At the end of the year, we will calculate the actual costs we've incurred for providing services. If the actual cost varies from our estimate, the following year's charges will be adjusted accordingly.

For further information, please see our tenant service charges page.

Leaseholders and shared owners 

Six months before the end of the financial year, we will send you a service charge statement showing the actual cost of the services provided. These costs will then be recovered in line with your lease agreements.

For more information, please see out homeownership service charges page. 

Items on your service charge notification

Please familiarise yourself with the terms often used when discussing service charges so you know what they mean and how they may impact you.

In the document below, you will find information on the different things we charge for.

Service charge glossary leaflet [pdf] 195KB

Please note an accessible version of this PDF will be available soon.

Disputing the quality of communal service

If you would like to query a service you are charged for or provide us with feedback on the quality of the service, please email service.charge@arun.gov.uk or phone 01903 737665.

Make a payment or set up a payment plan

If you would like to make a payment, talk to someone about affordability, or make an arrangement to pay your service charges gradually, please email neighbourhood.services@arun.gov.uk or phone 01903 737534.

If you're challenging a service charge, please continue to make your payments while we investigate; we will refund you if a charge is incorrect. Please note that all inquiries are responded to in the order received.

Talk to our service charges team

If you want to discuss your statement, contact our dedicated service charges officer: