Owners call for 'right to challenge' property service charges after fees treble

A group of apartment owners are calling for the "right to challenge" property service charges after their annual fees have more than trebled since 2018.

Some residents of Lisburn Square say their service charges were about £1,400 per annum in 2018, but the figure has risen to more than £4,300 for the last financial year.

The owners of the leasehold flats pay a service charge to the managing agent, Ambit CRE, for the maintenance, repairs and management of shared or communal areas as well as insurance.

Lisburn Square No 2, the apartment owners' landlord, said it was the "largest individual contributor to the service charge" and that all expenditure was audited.

Sheila Hughes, 97, who bought her apartment in 2010 has called on Stormont to "strengthen the law" to protect apartment owners.

"It just seems an awful lot and on a widow's pension, really it doesn't go very far," she said. "I try to have some savings but they have long since gone."

There is currently no legislation dealing specifically with shared property in Northern Ireland and no regulation, according to the Department of Finance.

Deborah Anderson bought her apartment at the mixed-use residential and commercial development in 2018.

She said the service charge fees increased suddenly in 2020, due to a "change in the apportionment" or share of costs, set by the landlord.

"Our bill just suddenly more than doubled at that time," she said.

"It's not because a lot of money is being spent on maintenance of the apartments or the communal areas that the residents use."

Anderson said residents had found it difficult to find out "exactly" what they are paying for and the annual budget they were provided was "quite vague".

She also claimed that in 2023 residents were told they had to pay a greater share of the development's car park costs.

Heather Jackson bought her apartment more than 20 years ago and said the increase in service charges had left her feeling stressed.

"That works out at £365 per month, which when you're a pensioner is a lot of money to be paying extra," she said.

Leaseholders in England, Scotland and Wales can challenge service charges through an independent tribunal.

Anderson and other residents are calling for a change in the law to allow leaseholders to "challenge fees that are seemingly unreasonable" in Northern Ireland.

"We know when you buy an apartment, you have to pay towards communal areas," she said.

"What we want is to know that we are paying a fair and reasonable amount, and here we have nowhere we can challenge this."

Lisburn Square No 2 said it "inherited all legal leasehold arrangements that exist between the landlord and leaseholders, to which both parties are bound" when it purchased the development.

"This legal document details the operation of the service charge and the covenants of both parties.

"Every leaseholder is required to confirm they have received their own independent legal advice prior to entering into the legal agreement.

"All service charge expenditure is audited by a firm of chartered certified accountants. A summary document detailing the residential expenditure is provided to each leaseholder by the managing agent."

The BBC contacted the managing agent, Ambit CRE, which said the landlord would "be responding directly on the matter".

In October 2025, Finance Minister John O'Dowd announced plans to reform how the management of shared property was regulated in Northern Ireland.

O'Dowd said as Northern Ireland's "housing landscape evolves, we must ensure that residents living in apartments and other shared developments are protected by clear, fair, and effective regulation".

A report produced by his department set out a number of policy options for future reform, including the introduction of a registration scheme for managing agents and more fundamental reform of land law.

The scoping study said assembly members had given examples of constituents "who have experienced significant unexplained increases in service charges that were crippling in their effect".

Lagan Valley assembly member David Honeyford raised the residents' concerns with the minister in the assembly earlier this year.

He said people who live in his constituency were "being held to ransom" and called for stronger oversight.

"Our legislation hasn't kept up to date with the change in how people live today," he said.

"People need to understand what they're paying for, they need to understand why they're paying for it and they need the transparency and to be able to appeal that and have a voice in that if they disagree."

Conveyancing solicitor Simon Murray said any regulation could have a "quite significant" impact on managing agents.

"Because there is obviously a cost element to that and that cost element may be passed on to individual shareholders, but in essence that could be a positive.

"It's at a very early stage, so it's hard to know until we actually see what's being proposed."

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance said the minister had "confirmed his intention to drive forward reform in the management of shared property management with a dedicated team being put in place to take forward the development of legislation in this important area for consideration in the early part of the next mandate".

"Stakeholder engagement and public consultation will be integral to this work once the team is in place," they added.