Understanding the Section 20 Process
Whether you’re a Shared Owner or a 100% leaseholder, this section is home to lots of useful information for you if you have communal spaces within your development.
Please note: This guidance does not cover estate service contracts, which follow a separate Section 20 consultation process.
Section 20 Consultations
We take care of day-to-day repairs in communal areas, along with essential building safety works. Sometimes we undertake larger-scale repair and maintenance works that require us to undergo the Section 20 process.
For example, our Asset Investment team plans general maintenance every 8 years, and where possible, combines larger works within these programmes. These can include, but are not limited to, communal fire doors, roofs, stairwells, and other essential building maintenance works.
This is called the External Planned Maintenance (EPM) programme which helps:
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- Prevent future issues & minimise the risk of major repairs.
- Extend the life of building components.
- Keep future responsive repair costs down and reduce costly, one-off repairs later on.
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Another example is our Building Safety team, who complete checks that can also identify works, such as lift works, gas safety etc.
The TCH Connection
Love Living Homes is the private arm of Town & Country Housing (TCH), a not-for-profit housing association. Once you become a Love Living Homes resident, all payments you make, such as rent and service charge, are (usually but not always!) managed by TCH.
In short...We’re the same organisation, just with a slightly different focus so we can tailor our services more closely to your needs.
Our property management database helps us plan what works are necessary, based on age and condition across our homes.
This creates cost-effective programmes across the board that enable the savings to be passed on to your proportion of the communal works costs.
Delaying works can lead to higher long-term costs for residents.
We aim to give you advance notice of any planned work. However, sometimes we may need to carry out repairs at shorter notice if issues arise following property inspections, fire risk assessments or events such as storm damage.
Leaseholders are responsible for repairs within their own home. The communal areas shown on your lease plan are the landlord's responsibility to maintain, although the associated costs will be apportioned to leaseholders in line with the terms of the lease.
More information
Please note: This guidance does not cover estate service contracts, which follow a separate Section 20 consultation process.
For more information or independent advice, visit the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) website, including their guide on Qualifying Long-Term Agreements (QLTAs).
Choosing our contractor
Most of our works are delivered through a Qualifying Long Term Agreement (QLTA). We consult with residents through a Section 20 process before appointing a contractor. This may have taken place before you moved into your home.
Our contract terms can be up to eight years with break clauses, which helps achieve value for money and a partnership approach. By delivering the works through a single large-scale contract, we can achieve economies of scale and ensure improvements are carried out efficiently across all our homes.
All contractors we use must meet our company standards and follow approved working practices. This ensures they have the right skills, experience, meet our high health & safety requirements and offer good value for money.
A QLTA enables us to carry out planned improvement or reactive (where necessary) works across our 13,000 properties on rolling geographical programmes. Under this approach, your home will be included in a planned repairs and maintenance programme on a recurring basis over a set number of years.
Some specialist work (e.g reactive works) may be carried out by other approved contractors outside of the QLTA. Where this happens, we will still follow a Section 20 process depending on the total cost to residents.
How is work funded?
If any planned work costs more than £250 per leaseholder, we will contact you and begin the Section 20 consultation process. We send the Section 20 estimate as early as we can so you have time to plan for any costs.
Once the financial year ends on 31 March, the contractor sends us the final account for all work completed during that year. We usually receive this in May or June. The final account includes the actual quantities/measurements/costs of the work carried out.
We review the details carefully and then issue invoices to residents around July or August.
If you pay into a sinking fund as part of your service charges, we will reconcile your account and confirm whether the fund covers the cost of the works, or if any additional amount will be invoiced.
If you do not have a sinking fund, you will be charged an apportioned cost of the works according to your lease. Your lease explains that you must pay your share of the service charge for repairs and maintenance.
If you cannot pay the full amount when invoiced, you can request to spread the payments over (up to) 12 months as an interest free payment plan. Unfortunately, we cannot offer longer payment plans, as this would be classed as providing credit and we are not licensed to do so.
Each financial year, you pay a sum towards responsive, not planned communal repairs as part of your annual service charge. This helps us quickly resolve smaller day to day issues such as guttering, fencing or minor roof repairs.
Costs are calculated using:
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- Agreed prices from the National Housing Federation’s Schedule of Rates, where applicable
- Contractor provided prices, which are competitively tendered
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How does a QLTA benefit residents?
This approach allows us to secure competitive rates by testing the market and benefiting from economies of scale. Working by geographical areas, a rolling approach helps keep costs down by delivering the works over a large number of our homes.
Any unspent amount is credited back to your account the following September in your service charge statement of accounts for the previous financial year (often referred to as your "Actuals").
Financial support
We understand the impact this may be having on your finances and our Money Support Team may be able to offer advice that could help. You can find out more about their work below.