SHAC reports on a landmark appeal won by shared ownership leaseholders.

Leaseholders at Viridian Apartments, Battersea, London, have won a decisive victory in the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) after Notting Hill Genesis appealed against two rulings. On 30th June 2026, the Upper Tribunal dismissed the housing association’s appeals on all grounds, confirming that shared ownership leaseholders cannot be required to pay service charges for parts of a development that their lease does not cover and that they are not permitted to use.

The decision (Notting Hill Home Ownership Limited v Samoail and others [2026] UKUT 235 (LC), Judge Elizabeth Cooke) upholds the First-tier Tribunal’s ruling of July 2025 and brings a dispute stretching back more than a decade a significant step closer to resolution.

What the tribunal decided

Block V1 of Viridian Apartments was designated for affordable housing and is held under shared-ownership leases. It has its own entrance, physically separate from the rest of the development — residents cannot access the communal garden, the concierge, the gym, or the other blocks.

Despite this, Notting Hill Genesis had been passing on service charges for exactly those areas and services by ignoring the provisions of the leases between it and the shared ownership leaseholders. The tribunals found that the leaseholders’ sub-leases only require them to pay for services provided for their own building, and that costs for facilities they cannot access or enjoy — including garden maintenance, the concierge, communal water and electricity, cleaning of areas they cannot reach, litter picking, pest control and insurance relating solely to the wider development — are not payable.

The Upper Tribunal rejected the association’s argument that residents nonetheless ‘benefit’ from a well-kept estate they can only look at, describing that argument as “deeply unattractive” and the supposed benefit as far too indirect to justify the charges.

The attempt to rewrite the leases also failed

After losing on the grounds of the leases, Notting Hill Genesis asked the Tribunal to vary the residents’ leases to recover the charges anyway. Both the First-tier Tribunal and, now, the Upper Tribunal refused. The Tribunal held that the leases already make satisfactory provision, and that the real problem lies not in the residents’ leases but in the separate headlease Notting Hill Genesis signed with the freeholder and the estate’s management company in 2007. To quote the decision, “The real problem here is that the plain words of the Headlease make NHHO [Notting Hill Genesis] liable for services that cannot benefit it or its sub-lessees. Why it entered into a lease in those terms is unknown, but its attempt to visit the consequences of that decision on its Sub-lessees cannot succeed.”

Residents are protected from the legal costs

The Tribunals also made orders preventing Notting Hill Genesis from recouping its own legal costs of these proceedings from the leaseholders through their service charges. A separate question about whether the management fees charged to Block V1 were set too high has been sent back to the First-tier Tribunal to finalise.

The human cost

Service charges at Viridian V1 block rose to around £6,200 a year for a two-bedroom flat — an increase of roughly 265% since 2011 when service charges were £1700, with one-bedroom flats reaching around £4,770 per year from £2136 in 2018, an increase of 123%. For shared ownership residents, many of whom bought into the scheme precisely because it was meant to be affordable, the strain has been severe. The leaseholders self-funded most of their £42,000 legal costs with assistance from public donations through crowdfunding initiatives. “We were fortunate to have strength in numbers with 25 leaseholders out of 38 flats banding together for this David versus Goliath battle against one of the UK’s biggest housing associations,” said one leaseholder.

Despite the victory, the leaseholders remain significantly out of pocket. Firstly, it is nearly impossible for them to recover their legal costs, and secondly, only excessive charges from the last few years are recoverable. While the ruling ensures future charges are fair and properly aligned with the respective leases, the injustices of the past remain. Leaseholders have been overcharged since 2014, with years of excessive charges now non-recoverable. “This feels like corporate financial abuse that is not only immoral but frankly abhorrent because it was done by a housing association with a charitable objective to provide affordable housing,” a leaseholdersaid.

The First-tier Tribunal’s decision should have been sufficient to settle the case, but Notting Hill Genesis appealed, resulting in significant legal fees for leaseholders and further anguish and hardship.  This saga may not be over if Notting Hill Genesis appeals again. “We hope this gives confidence to shared ownership and social housing residents across the UK who suspect they are being overcharged and their service charge is being mismanaged,” said Janine, a leaseholder at Viridian Apartments.

A message to other leaseholders: Check your lease

The residents are urging shared ownership and social-housing leaseholders across the country to read their leases carefully at the point of purchase and to take the opportunity to review them now. Be alert to applications to change lease terms that would allow new service charges to be levied. It is important that people question service charges for parts of an estate that their lease does not cover or that they do not have the right to use. If your building is separate from the wider development, or you cannot access the facilities you’re being billed for, you may not be legally required to pay for them if the lease does not include them.

Leaseholders who believe they are being wrongly charged can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for a determination of whether a service charge is payable under section 27A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Residents are encouraged to seek advice before withholding any payment, as leases often allow a landlord to take action for non-payment.

Landlord service charge abuse highlighted by National Audit Office

The ruling comes asthe UK’s independent public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office,formally reviewed SHAC’s findings on landlord service charge abuses and their impact on the public purse.

The Comptroller and Auditor General confirmed that he is writing to both the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), and will press both departments on further steps to protect tenants from unreasonable service charges and to reduce the risk to public funds.

SHAC’s research and further evidence presented to the NAO and the NAO’s own enquiries revealed a startling gap in the state’s oversight of public money.

The DWP confirmed that in 2025–26, it paid an estimated £39.9 billion in housing support through Housing Benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit. However, local authorities, which process Housing Benefit on behalf of the DWP, do not routinely separate the cost of rent from service charges, even when service charges are billed separately. 

This means that 

• Neither central nor local government are able to specify the amount paid to landlords in respect of services as opposed to rent; and
• Neither are able to test whether service charge demands are accurate or reasonable – only whether the items listed are theoretically eligible for Housing Benefit.

Service charge abuse on an industrial scale

Data shared by SHAC showed that out of 233 service charge challenge cases determined in court in 2025, the First Tier tribunal removed or reduced the disputed charges in 170 instances: overcharging had therefore occurred in a total of 73% of cases. 

SHAC argues that multiple independent strands of evidence, ranging from First-Tier Tribunal decisions to official responses to Parliamentary Questions, demonstrate that a regulatory gap exposes both ordinary tenants and public funds to unnecessary risk.

The Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC) is a member-led organisation campaigning for better rights, fair treatment, and an end to systemic service charge abuse for tenants and residents across the UK housing sector.