Your service charge is one of your biggest living costs, and almost nobody checks it. Upload your lease and bills for an honest assessment of what's challengeable, what it's worth, and the letters to send.
£9.89, one payment. For leaseholders in England. Not legal advice, no guarantees.
60-second check · free · no upload
1.0 / The problem
The landlord and its managing agent decide what's spent, who's paid and how it's split. You pay, usually without seeing a single invoice. The law gives you real rights to question it. Almost nobody uses them, because it means reading an 80-page lease and knowing which complaints actually win.
2.0 / Upload
Phone photos, scanned leases, PDF demands. We identify each document, read it, and cite the page and the exact words for every fact we rely on. Missing something? We draft the letter that makes your agent send it, with the legal deadline in it.
3.0 / The verdict
Most people attack the management fee first. It's usually the one that loses, and losing it costs you credibility on the points that would have won. Every point gets a straight verdict, a realistic value and the clause it rests on. Fixed rules make the call, so the same documents always get the same answer.
4.0 / The letters
Service charge: points in dispute
1. Apportionment
My lease requires the apportionment to be fair and reasonable, made “having regard to the relative degree of benefit obtained by the Tenant”. I obtain no benefit from the lifts or the cleaning of internal corridors. My contribution to these items is approximately £630 a year…
2. Year-end accounts
Certified accounts have not been provided for the years ending 31 December 2024 or 2025…
An information request, a challenge letter with the strongest points first, a chaser that cites the criminal offence for ignoring you, and the complaint for when they still don't answer. You check them, you send them, you stay in control.
5.0 / Your neighbours
Every flat on your schedule pays from the same budget, so the same problems are on your neighbours' bills, and the same savings. Send them the free quick check. Letters from several flats get answered faster, and together you can form a recognised tenants' association or take over management entirely.
Why this exists
“My service charge on a two-bed in London went up by more than half in five years, with no new services. I did what everyone does: got angry and wanted to attack the management fee.
Then I read the lease properly. The management fee was below the national average; I'd have lost. But the lease said my share had to reflect how much I actually benefit from each service, and that I could take a dispute to an independent surveyor. My weakest-sounding argument was my strongest. I built Overcharged so nobody else needs three weeks and a law library to find that out, and I keep it free because the people who need it most are the ones a rising bill hurts most.”
Know your rights
Start with how to challenge a service charge, step by step, or read the three lessons from challenging my own service charge in London.
Then the rules that win most often: section 20 consultation on major works, the 18-month rule for service charges, and how to request a section 21 summary of costs. Remortgaging soon? Read what to do if your service charge is too high for your mortgage.
Questions
No. It's an initial assessment based on your documents, with no guarantee of any outcome. We show you where the evidence is so you can check every point yourself before you send anything, and we tell you when to get advice from LEASE (the free Leasehold Advisory Service) or a solicitor.
Then we'll tell you. The quick check says plainly when a charge looks normal or low, and the assessment marks arguments that would lose as "Don't bother". We'd rather tell you it's fair than send you into a fight you can't win.
Whatever you have. The most useful are your lease, your latest demand and the budget that came with it. We'll tell you what's missing and draft the letters to get it: your agent has to provide a summary of costs within a month if you ask in writing.
Asking questions about your service charge is your legal right, and the letters are polite and specific. Agents get these requests all the time. What changes is that yours has the evidence in it.
A dispute has to be declared to buyers, so timing matters, and we say so. But a high charge already affects your sale: some lenders get cautious once the annual charge passes 1% of the flat's value. Getting it down helps.
They're read on servers in the US and EU by providers that don't store or train on them. We keep them for six months so we can read the agent's reply with you, then delete them. You can delete everything instantly at any time.
England only for now. Wales has a different tribunal and Scotland a different system entirely; both are on the list.
£9.89, once, paid before you upload. That covers one property: every finding, the plan, the letters, and any documents you add later, like your agent's reply. The 60-second quick check on this page is free. Paid but not uploaded anything yet? Email us within 14 days for a full refund. And if we misread one of your documents, we fix it or give you your money back.
Yes, so your documents and your assessment are saved and you can come back to them when the agent replies. Just an email, or one click with Google. We fill in your flat's details from your documents and only ask what they can't tell us.
£9.89, once. Ten minutes with your documents. Then share it with your building.