Two Camberwell residents are shocked that they are being charged £72 a week for the maintenance and fire safety equipment in a tiny hallway leading to their homes.
Neighbours, Debi O’Brien and Marcia Wilson are fed up with what they claim is an ‘unreasonable charge’ – which has now risen to £3,758 per year.
They live in Camberwell, in two flats inside a converted house managed by Hyde Housing. Debi has been living there since the early ‘90s and Marcia for the last 11 years.
Since 2016, they have been paying a weekly charge for their hallway – which is around 36 square feet, which according to Debi is ‘not even big enough for her 6ft 5 son to lie down in.’
They said it came in ‘with no warning’ and they had never paid a service charge before 2016.
From this month, the £20 charge has risen to £36 a week each – making it £72 per week.
Marcia said: “It’s 20 per cent of what I pay for rent. It’s ridiculous.
“They shouldn’t be allowed to charge us this much without a proper explanation. I don’t understand why it’s falling on us as tenants to pay for it.”
A cost breakdown revealed the fire safety contract servicing was behind the majority of the charge. After contesting the amount, Hyde Housing said in an email that the changes were to comply with new building safety standards, and they were ‘sorry it had not been clearer.’
Debi has lived there since 1993 and said the hallway charge first came in 2016 – equivalent to around £20 a week at the time, she claims.
She said 2016 was also the year that she found out the ‘communal electricity’ had been linked to her meter for the 23 years she had lived there.
With the help of the Housing Ombudsman, Hyde paid £600 compensation to her and a subsequent 15p a day for six years.
Debi added: “Coincidentally that’s when they started charging us for the hallway.”
Marcia said: “The money we’re being charged is my holiday money. Now I can’t afford to take a vacation anymore.”
When we contacted Hyde for comment, they confirmed the service charges for the property were correct. They said they send an estimate and then later any deficit or surplus is reconciled.
A spokesperson from Hyde told us: “The increase in charges is due to fire safety equipment in the communal area. The equipment, including fire alarms and emergency lighting, has to be maintained within government safety standards.
“The fire alarm testing frequency has increased from quarterly to monthly, to align with the standards, which has led to an increase in costs. Costs have gone up since 2016, as this is when we started recovering costs for this service – which we previously absorbed.”
“Finally, we’ve had to instal a smart lock onto the property, so that we can easily access the communal area so that we can carry out the checks.”
We asked Hyde to explain why the cost had fallen to tenants and why it was so much.
“As a landlord, it’s our responsibility to keep communal areas safe. Despite our best efforts, the cost of providing some of the services to keep our homes and buildings decent and safe has increased, particularly around building safety.
“As per their lease and tenancy agreements, customers must contribute to the cost of the upkeep and maintenance of shared areas. These costs are shared between customers.”
They added that whilst they were ‘very conscious’ of the cost-of-living crisis, safety was their ‘absolute priority.’