The first five years

If you buy a council flat as a secure tenant under the Right to Buy we have to tell you how much your service charges are likely to be in the first five years. To do this we have to think about what we may need to do to your block in this time and how much it is likely to cost.

Once we have estimated your repair and improvement costs for the first five years, we cannot charge you more than this (except for an allowance for inflation). If we find we have over-estimated, we will only charge you what it actually cost. This is called the five-year ‘protection period’.

This five-year protection period applies to repairs and improvements from the date the first buyer buys the lease. If you sell the lease within this time the next buyer is entitled to what is left of the five-year protection period. There is not a new five-year period each time the lease is sold on.