Service charge falsely advertised

bishbashbosh1975

I had an offer accepted on a flat in November 2025, with an advertised service charge of £1400/year. Today I have received the documentation from my solicitor including details of the service charge, which is shown as £1800/year. This is the first time I have seen this figure and this has not been mentioned to me at any stage.

My solicitor says there is nothing they can do regarding this and to speak to the estate agent. The estate agent says the £1300 was correct as this is what the seller put on their 'sellers information form'. The seller last paid the service charge in October 2025 so they were aware of the correct charge at the time of my first viewing.

Ideally I want to avoid putting in a reduced offer on the flat as I want to move in asap and also want to avoid my current mortgage offer expiring in June.

Can anyone give some advice on this or is it just tough luck?

mills112

Estate agents are required to disclose the service charge, but a lot of properties are still advertised where I live where this information is not populated on rightmove with "Ask the EA"!

The figure that comes from the EA can't be taken as gospel and it is the legal process that is going to be the correct information. You can only tell the EA that it is incorrect and if it matters to you, reduce the price accordingly if you think that is justifiable. Look at service charge for similar properties in the area to give you an idea.

2childmum2

Service charges also go up every year - the advertised charge may have been correct at the time the property was first advertised but have gone up since.

user1977

And even if it was £1300 today it could be £1800 next week. I doubt you'll convince anyone that the difference makes any material change to the market value.

jaybeetoo

I’d be finding out what the service charge was over the last 5 years. You can then work out how much it rises each year and then project it forward 5 years to see how much it might go up to. The problem with service charges is they only go one way.

ExEstateAgent

Service charges aren't fixed. It could be £1000 one year and £10,000 the next. I had a service charge of £25K one year. It depends on what is needed for the building (I had a building that had been neglected and when pushed the freeholder threw his toys out of the pram and decided to do everything in one go).

You need to consider what work is likely in the future (roof, grounds etc). and see if costs have historically been consistent.

TroubledTarts

That's what happens during discovery/searches and confirming everything by solicitors etc.

You have a choice to continue as is, review your offer accordingly or pull out.

I would question what you get for £1800 and itf it's worth it to you as well.

eddddy

What outcome are you looking for?

If you're wondering about getting a compensation payment from the estate agent - that's unlikely, because you still have the opportunity to reduce your offer to compensate for the higher Service Charge, or walk away.

(If you walked away genuinely because of the higher Service Charge, the Property Ombudsman has the power to decide whether the estate agent has treated you unfairly, and whether the estate agent has to refund your lost legal fees etc.)

FWIW, it seems like the sequence of events was something like this:

• The seller put the flat on the market in maybe September 2025 - and quoted the latest available Service Charge figure (i.e. 2024/2025 service charge), which was £1400
• In October 2025, the seller got a new Service Charge bill for the next year (i.e. 2025/2026 Service Charge), which was £1800
• You viewed in November 2025, but nobody told you about the new £1800 service charge bill

If the estate agent agent is a member of the Property Ombudsman scheme, you could make a complaint to the Property Ombudsman - but I don't know if the Ombudsman would uphold that complaint. If the Ombudsman did uphold the complaint, they might tell the Estate Agent to apologise to you.

BungalowBel

When we were selling our rental flat in 2024, the answer I gave about the service charge was 'it's £xxxx at this date', because I knew it may go up before the sale completed and I didn't want any repercussions.