Leasehold and drainage: what the service charge should and should not cover
The lease decides, not the statute. Most disputes come down to one question nobody checks until the invoice arrives: was the defect inside the demise?
The line the lease draws
A residential lease demises a flat and lists what comes with it. Pipework serving only that flat, up to the point it joins a communal run, is almost always the leaseholder’s. Communal stacks, the building’s below-ground drainage and anything serving more than one flat are the freeholder’s, maintained through the service charge.
Leases vary in where exactly they put the boundary, and older ones can be vague. Where the wording is unclear, what settles it in practice is a survey showing which side of the junction the defect sits on.
Why the argument usually starts
Because the flat that reports the problem is rarely the flat that caused it. The lowest flat sees a communal blockage first, so a ground floor leaseholder gets the smell, the backup and, if nobody checks, the invoice.
The pattern and its fix are set out in converted flats and shared soil stacks. In purpose-built blocks the equivalent is mansion block drainage, where almost everything is communal.
What can and cannot go on the service charge
Reasonable costs of maintaining and repairing communal drainage can. So can proportionate planned maintenance, which is usually cheaper per flat than a run of emergency call-outs.
What tends not to survive a challenge: clearing a blockage caused by a single identified flat, work on pipework inside a demise, and improvement dressed up as repair. Leaseholders can ask for the invoices, and section 20 consultation applies once the cost per flat passes the threshold.
The practical lesson for anyone managing a block is that the contractor’s report is the document that protects the charge. Vague paperwork loses arguments.
If you are the leaseholder paying
- Ask which pipe failed, where, and how that was established.
- Check the lease plan against that location before paying anything.
- If the fault is on a communal run, the cost belongs to the service charge, not to you directly.
- If it is beyond the building boundary it may be the water company’s altogether: see who is responsible.
If you are the freeholder or RMC
Two things reduce cost and complaint at the same time. Get the communal runs surveyed once so you know what you are managing, rather than discovering it during an emergency. And keep the reports, because they answer the next three years of queries.
Where the drainage is old clay under a courtyard, a survey usually pays for itself the first time it prevents an excavation quoted blind. See CCTV drain surveys, or coverage in Camden, Wandsworth and Greenwich.
Local pages with call-out times and prices for the area: blocked drains in NW1.