After the government promised to take action over rocketing service charges in leasehold flats, a group of MPs has urged the NAO to investigate landlords’ service charge payments.

They have called on the National Audit Office to investigate the validity of service charge payments made through the benefit system, by tenants of all kinds.

Here’s LabourHub:

Research compiled by the housing campaign group SHAC… demonstrates that a high proportion of service charge accounts contain overcharges.

The [26] MPs’ letter has been shared with the NAO together with a letter from the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) which is working with SHAC to end service charge abuse.

The letter explains that “Housing associations [are] imposing often fictitious and/or excessive service charges which, when covered by universal credit and housing benefit, burden the public purse without adequate scrutiny.”

Housing associations… collect around £1.7 billion in respect of service charges annually, approximately half of which is met through Housing Benefit payments. Yet there is currently no scrutiny in place to ensure that landlord service charge demands are legitimate.

It seems that if the NAO refuses to investigate – and the reasons for that may be interesting, then SHAC will consider taking legal action of its own.

Source: 26 MPs Urge National Audit Office to Investigate Service Charge Payments to Landlords – Labour Hub