What is a Service Charge?

If you live in a house or flat that has shared areas or facilities, a service charge is paid towards the cost of providing these services and repairs to these areas.

An example of a service charge would be the cleaning and maintenance of any communal areas such as an entrance lobby, stairwells or lifts. Your share of the cost of these would be included in the service charge.

A service charge can also include estate charges. These are charges for services provided to the estate on which your property is situated and can include items such as grounds maintenance.

Ongoing Service Charges

Service charges are estimated for the year based on the previous years actual spends with an inflationary increase. We also take into account any information we have about changes to services. We try to forecast as accurately as possible to keep any differences in your annual service charge to a minimum but in some areas such as utility bills it is impossible for us to know in advance how much we spend.

What services are covered by the Service Charge?

North Star provides a wide range of services to the properties we manage. We provide certain services to make sure that properties are safe and others to maintain a good standard of living for our residents.

Administration Fee

North Star charges a fee which covers the costs we incur as a landlord in calculating and arranging the service charges associated with your property. Currently costs are calculated on 15% of the overall service charge.

Management Charge
For people living in supported accommodation where additional support staff are employed to help tenants we make an additional charge called a management charge. This charge helps pay for those additional staff.