I’m trapped in unsellable home and with a £6,861 service charge | Personal Finance | Finance

Residents in an affordable housing block have become “locked in a nightmare” in “unsellable” flats due to steep service charges, which have increased by thousands of pounds in just one year. Kunal Kapoor, who owns a two-bedroom flat with parking in Hayes, west London, needs to find an extra £3,137.88 per year with his total service charges now a mind-boggling £6,861.12.

He received a letter from landlords MTVH demanding £571.76 per month, an increase of £261.49, from April 2025 to March 2026. Chair of the residents’ association Adam Sylla is also facing a “financial crisis” and says he has been told by an estate agent that the new service charges have effectively made his flat unsellable. His bill was increased by £2,132.04 this year, with monthly payments of £454.39 that nearly eclipse his mortgage. “Everything I have is now in this trap,” he said.

Despite the enormous charges, affordable housing residents at High Point Village, which is a development of 600 apartments, say their lift and intercom have been broken for years, while rubbish is piled up outside.

Meanwhile, a gym, pool, 24-hour concierge service and working lift are located in the privately owned side of the development, fenced off from the two blocks of social housing and one block of shared ownership flats.

Mr Sylla wanted to sell his flat after finally resolving cladding issues but the new charges have put a stop to his plans.

He explained: “Everything’s been a battle. When we got the cladding sorted, I thought, thank God, I’m going to get out. But one week after I got a valuation, this letter came.

“They suspect that it’s unsellable now. It’s absolutely crushing, devastating. We had plans, we were actually going to try and make something out of our lives. We can’t do that now. We’re locked into this nightmare.”

After facing homelessness at 16, Adam used all his life savings to buy 45% of his £165,000 home through shared ownership in 2009, and then gradually purchased the remainder of the property.

He added: “What makes this all the more stressful is I’ve worked my whole life to buy this place. I’ve put everything in. This is supposed to be my security.

“Now, nearly 30 years after I first experienced homelessness, I am again in a fight for my home — this time because of spiralling service charges I can’t control or justify. Under affordable housing, how can this be? It’s insanity.”

Mr Sylla said landlords and managing agents “pass the buck” between each other, which he said has made it impossible to progress with their disputes, leaving them at “breaking point”.

The Express was shown an email from MTVH to Sylla, confirming that Ballymore were the managing agents, and that it had contacted them twice in November 2024, and once in February and March this year, to inquire about the charges.

However, when contacted by the Express about the charges, Ballymore said it was not aware of any shared-ownership apartments in the affordable housing blocks at High Point Village, nor did it have any visibility of the arrangements between the residents, or their provider’s service charges.

It confirmed that Ballymore is the managing agent for the estate and communal areas, but said the two affordable blocks are leased to MTVH.

Mr Sylla confirmed that the landlords, MTVH, have responded to residents’ initial complaint, attributing the increase to a substantial underestimate of the 2024 service charge.

And MTVH told the Express: “We appreciate this is a significant increase and the vast majority of these services are delivered by a third-party managing agent who independently sets the charges.

“We are querying these on behalf of our residents as well as reviewing our own proportion which represents 11% of the total charge and includes all household heating.

“We have frozen a previous payment charged to our residents while we investigate these charges further.”

Referring to the gym, concierge and pool, MTVH added: “Our residents only pay for services they receive and do not pay for the additional services on this site that they cannot access.

“These are provided separately to residents under a different landlord who pay for them through separate service charges. While we have requested that our residents can access these facilities this has not been granted.”

Ballymore added it was not aware of any service charges at High Point Village that are invoiced by Ballymore Asset Management Limited increasing by 84% in a year.