Service charge A - Z

Service charges explained

Access Gates

This charge covers the operation and servicing of car and pedestrian access gates. It includes maintenance of motors, hinges, control panels, safety sensors, intercom links, key fob or keypad access systems, and emergency-release mechanisms. It helps make sure gates remain safe, functional, and compliant.

Bin Hire / Waste Management

This charge covers the hire, provision, and maintenance of communal refuse containers, recycling bins, and bulk waste skips. It also includes private waste collections where council services don’t meet requirements, such as fly-tipping, bulk disposal fees, and bin cleaning or replacement.

Buildings Insurance

This charge is for insurance that protects the full building structure against risks such as fire, flood, storm damage, impact, subsidence, vandalism, terrorism, and escape of water.

Bulk Refuse

This charge covers the removal of large waste items such as furniture, mattresses, white goods, construction debris, and abandoned vehicles. These usually need specialist contractors, as they can’t be collected through standard household waste services.

On many of our estates and blocks, this is private (not public) land, so the responsibility for clearing them sits with us. We recover the cost through the service charge. Local councils aren’t responsible for removing items from private land.

Caretaker

This charge covers onsite caretaking services. This can include daily property inspections, minor repairs, cleaning support, key management, responding to resident queries, monitoring contractors, supporting health and safety, and maintaining general estate standards.

CCTV

This charge covers the installation, servicing, repair, and operation of communal CCTV systems. It includes cameras, recording equipment, wiring, software licences, data storage, and electricity. It may also include remote monitoring or maintenance contracts.

Additional costs may apply if recordings are requested.

Communal Cleaning

This charge covers the regular cleaning of shared internal areas such as entrances, corridors, lifts, lobbies, stairwells, and bin stores. It includes labour, equipment, cleaning materials, and periodic deep cleaning.

Find out more about communal cleaning

Communal Electricity

This charge covers electricity used in shared areas. This includes lighting (internal and external), lifts, pumps, ventilation systems, door entry panels, access gates, CCTV, and other communal equipment.

Find out more about communal electricity

Communal repairs / General building works

This charge covers reactive and planned repairs to shared parts of the building or estate. This can include roofs, gutters, walls, flooring, lighting, doors, fences, pipework, drainage, and communal equipment. It includes labour, materials, and emergency call-outs.

Find out more about communal repairs and maintenance

Door entry / Entryphone

This charge covers the maintenance and repair of communal access and intercom systems. It includes call panels, handset units, fob or card readers, magnetic locks, video entry screens, and wiring. It helps keep access to the building secure and reliable.

Electrical Testing / Maintenance

This charge covers statutory and routine inspections of communal electrical systems, including EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report) and fixed wire testing.

External Audit Fee

This charge is for an independent external audit of service charge accounts. It helps make sure costs are accurate, transparent, and compliant with regulations.

External Managing Agent

This charge covers the cost of a third-party managing agent where one is appointed. They help manage the block or estate, including services, contractors, compliance, budgeting, resident communication, and health and safety.

On some schemes, responsibilities are shared between Peabody and the managing agent.

Fire Safety

This charge covers maintenance and repairs for fire safety systems. This includes fire alarms, fire doors, emergency lighting, extinguishers, smoke ventilation systems, signage, and fire risk assessments.

Find out more about fire equipment and fire safety maintenance

Grounds Maintenance / Gardening

This charge covers the upkeep of communal outdoor areas such as lawns, hedges, trees, planting areas, and pathways. Routine work includes mowing, pruning, planting, weeding, litter picking, and leaf clearance.

It also includes maintaining roads and hard surfaces (like car parks), including weed spraying and clearing debris.

Find out more about grounds maintenance 

Legionella Testing / Water Hygiene

This charge covers the maintenance of communal water systems, including shared pipes and tanks. It includes monitoring, sampling, inspections, cleaning, risk assessments, and treatment to prevent Legionella and other harmful bacteria.

What is water hygiene and Legionella testing?

Lift Maintenance

This charge covers the servicing, inspection, and repair of lifts. It includes safety checks, call-outs, replacement parts, cleaning, and ongoing maintenance to keep lifts working safely.

Management Fee

This is a fee charged by the landlord to cover the cost of managing the block or estate. This includes budgeting, invoicing, compliance, customer service, contractor management, and overall service delivery.

Mansafe Equipment

This charge covers specialist safety systems that allow contractors to work at height safely, usually on roofs. It includes safety lines, harness systems, and required inspections and certification.

Pest Control

This charge covers monitoring and treatment to prevent or deal with pests such as rodents, insects, birds, or wasps. It includes routine visits, call-outs, and preventative work.

Playground Equipment

This charge covers the maintenance and repair of communal play areas, helping make sure they’re safe and usable.

Pumps

This charge covers the maintenance and repair of pumps, such as foul water, storm water, sewage, and booster systems. It includes servicing, replacement parts, emergency call-outs, and testing.

Sinking Funds / Reserve funds

This charge contributes to a long-term fund used for major planned works, such as roof replacement, lift upgrades, fire safety works, or structural repairs. It helps spread the cost and avoid large one-off bills.

Find out more about sinking funds

Surplus / Deficits (Sur/Def)

This shows whether there was a surplus or deficit in the previous years’ service charge account — the difference between what was spent and what was collected.

If there’s a surplus, less was spent than expected. If there’s a deficit, costs were higher than planned. This balance is carried forward into the next year.

Trees & Shrubs Surgery

This charge covers work such as pruning, tree removal, stump treatment, and maintaining shrubs and hedges. It helps keep the area safe and planting healthy.

Window Cleaning

This charge covers cleaning of communal windows, including external windows and internal glazing in shared areas like entrances and stairwells.

It doesn’t include windows inside individual homes.

Find out more about communal cleaning