L&Q Relations

Service Charge

For Housing Association tenants the Service Charge is fixed at the beginning of the year and is not adjusted regardless of whether the cost goes up or down (the Fixed Service Charge); this is recovered through the rent payment.  It is therefore important that we understand the breakdown of the estimates and challenge any inaccuracies up front.  This fixed service charge does not include certain items such as buildings insurance or sinking fund as these are covered by L&Q as part of their charitable basis.  We have recourse to complaints and to the Ombudsman, we cross check/sense check the costs in the estimates against what is paid by leaseholders where we have more power to investigate and challenge charges.  

Freeholders, leaseholders and shared owners are also presented with estimates in Mar/Feb each year for and pay a service charge each month.  At the end of the financial year L&Q reconcile the charges and present residents with a statement; residents may need to pay more or could receive a rebate (this is the Variable Service Charge).  L&Q must provide the reconciliation statement by 30 Sep each year, we then have the right to request and inspect the invoices during the period 30 Sep to 31 Mar.  It’s important to note that we are obliged to pay the service charge or we are in breach of our lease.

Evidence from prior years has uncovered many items of incorrect charging.  We need the evidence from the reconciliation to correct errors but importantly to understand the estimates used in the Fixed Service Charge and to challenge that as soon as it comes out.  Freeholders, leaseholders and shared owners have a right to see invoices.  Take a look at the FAQs under how to challenge the service charge or understanding the service charge for an explanation of each of the charges.  Helping L&Q to improve the accuracy of service changes is an important focus for the CMRA.

It’s worth noting that from 1 Apr 2024 L&Q will no longer administer the Fixed Estate Charge. 

Working with L&Q

As it is the case with any large organisation, communicating with L&Q can be tricky.  Our primary contact points are the folks that you see on the estate.  

• Dobir and Grace  are our housing leads and are our primary contact and main route into the L&Q organisation.  Faults/repairs, maintaining block cleanliness, antisocial behaviour, repairs to common areas all fall under their remit.  Latent defects, warranty fixes for long warranty items are managed by Dobir and Charlene chasing Taylor Wimpey through the ‘after care’ service.  

• Caretakers look after the cleanliness of our apartment blocks and should be undertaking minor repairs.  You will likely know who your block caretaker is - if not his/her name is on your notice board.

• Estate caretakers.  David Williams leads the teams of estate caretakers, they look after the quality of the grounds including litter, emptying litter bins, weeding, gardening, watering, planting, grass cutting and, to some extent, tree maintenance. 

• Mobile caretakers.  These are L&Q employees who undertake repairs on the estate (buildings or grounds) or minor works.  Our experience is that they deliver high quality work and have a strong degree of ownership in maintaining the estate.  They are cheaper and better than getting a contractor in to do the same work.  Dobir and Charlene assign them tasks, but they can and often are employed on different L&Q sites. 

L&Q also maintains our estate through a series of subcontractors; these cover lifts, lighting, playgrounds, doors, access control, garage gates, fire safety, trees maintenance and a wide range of other tasks, repairs or activities.  These back office functions have caused us problems in the past because contractors just turn up and don’t know where they are to go or the back office function fails to consult residents and get it wrong; this is through no fault of the housing leads.  The CMRA is working to improve the overall performance of this interaction.  We slowly identify and understand how the L&Q organisation works and we believe that direct contacts into those back office functions is helping us (and the housing leads) to improve service delivery.  

• Estate services.  Responsible for playground inspections and repairs, tree contracts - pruning, watering, staking, estate caretakers, planting/gardening.

• Building services.  Responsible for regular and statutory building maintenance/checks from lightning inspection, roof inspection, electrical testing, alarms.  Maintenance of lifts, doors, door access systems, water systems, electricity supply.  We have asked building services for a list of which activities are to be undertaken and when so that we can monitor their compliance.

• Fire Safety services.  Following Grenfell and the Fire Safety Act there are a number of new mandatory checks and changes to regulations, these are resulting in new charges for tenants, leaseholders and shared owners.  As with building services we are monitoring L&Q compliance.  

• Service Charge team.  Pretty self explanatory but they also include planning for major building or estate works, management of Section 20 activities and insurance/insurance claims.  

It’s important to understand that L&Q do not maintain everything in your house or apartment, for most of us they have no responsibility inside or property.  For Housing Association tenants they do have some responsibility inside the apartment.  Consult the FAQs for a breakdown of what is L&Q responsibility and what is yours.  

Getting Help

L&Q maintain a help desk, they tend to be knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.  Emergencies should be handled in no more than 4 hours.  Where issues, repairs, requests, anti-social behaviour is not being handled in a timely or satisfactory manner then we have recourse to the L&Q Complaint system.  It’s important to note that just reporting a fault or raising a complaint with the housing leads or anyone else verbally means that you have complained but have not raised a Formal Complaint.  If you have reason, raising a Formal Complaint is a useful second step as it kicks in a new more rigorous process with responses required within a limited period of time.  To raise a Formal Complaint call the L&Q help line and make sure that you get a complaint number (which likely starts with CAS).  If you do not receive some kind of response stating your issue within 24 hours then call the help desk again.  

As part of our efforts to shadow and call the difficulties and failure in the L&Q systems and culture we are building our own database and job tracker system. You can help us help all of us by logging your complaint or job raised with L&Q on our system.