If your freeholder wants to carry out major works to your building — a new roof, cladding replacement, lift refurbishment — and the cost to any individual leaseholder will exceed £250, they are legally required to consult you first.
This is a section 20 major works consultation. It sounds like protection. In many ways it is. But after years working in property management, let me tell you what it often looks like in practice.
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The freeholder writes to you. They describe the works. They invite you to nominate a contractor. They ask for your observations. And then, in most cases, they proceed exactly as they intended to from the start.
Because a Section 20 consultation is a legal process, not a democratic one. The freeholder is required to consult you. They are under no obligation whatsoever to act on anything you say. Your observations can be noted, filed, and dismissed— entirely legally.
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Surveyors’ fees. Project management fees. Section 20 administration fees charged by the managing agent. All of them recoverable through your service charge.
Many agents charge these fees as a percentage of the total cost of the works. Not a fixed fee. A percentage.
Does a surveyor’s workload genuinely increase because the roof costs £800,000 instead of £400,000? Does the agent’s Section 20 administration become twice as complex because the contract is larger?
Some agents don’t just charge that percentage to the service charge — they also pass a share of it down to the individual property manager overseeing the works. A personal financial incentive, paid out of your service charge, for completing a Section 20.
Think about what that incentivises. Not rigorous procurement. Not scrutinising whether the works are necessary. Not challenging costs on your behalf. It incentivises volume. More Section 20s. Larger contracts. Higher fees.
This is not a rogue practice hiding in the shadows. It is baked into how parts of this industry operate.
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Without control of the management of your building, you cannot control this process. You can participate in a consultation designed around compliance rather than outcomes, while fees accumulate at every stage — none of which require your agreement, only your payment.
Rightly Managed scrutinises Section 20 processes on behalf of leaseholders. We look at whether the consultation was correctly followed, whether the costs are justified, whether the fee structures attached to the works represent a conflict of interest — and what, if anything, can be challenged.
**If you have received a Section 20 notice, if major works are planned for your building, or if you’ve been billed for works and something doesn’t feel right — contact Rightly Managed today.**
You may not be able to stop the process. But you have every right to understand it — and to challenge what doesn’t stack up.
