House owner with estate charges (Sage manages the estate)  

You pay your service charge in addition to your rent payment and we’ve broken down each part of this down for you below:  

Protecting your home

Building insurance is a legal requirement for all homeowners as part of your mortgage and protects you against structural damage to your home. It’s important for your peace of mind that you have the best insurance in place and, because we also own part of your home, we need to arrange your building insurance, working with specialists to get the best value possible. 

We don’t compromise on your building insurance, which covers almost all eventualities. Because we purchase cover for thousands of homes, we get good  value, and you get the added security of knowing your premiums won’t increase if you need to make a claim. As a result, you won’t find a quote for building insurance, comparable to our specialist cover, on price comparison websites.

Safe in your community

We want to make sure your neighbourhood is clean and well maintained, as well as feeling safe. We’re responsible for keeping the shared areas around your home (including grassed areas) neat and tidy. Your estate charges cover the cost of reputable contractors who carry out routine and unplanned works (such as grass cutting and path clearing), keeping your local area looking the best it can be. 

We know that money is a serious consideration, so we’re thorough in selecting organisations that will deliver you with a quality service at the best price possible. 

We’re here for you

Our friendly team of experts is always on hand to provide support whenever you need. Your management and administration fees cover our costs for providing this team, managing your account and answering your phone calls, emails and My Sage Home queries. The team also create the additional reports required of us by the Regulator of Social Housing as well as managing any staircasing and resales requests.

No one likes getting monthly bills which is why we always check your service charge, working hard to balance good quality services and value for money. We want to make sure you’re safe in your home and community, without breaking the bank. 

How the service charge cycle works

We provide a service charge estimate at the end of each February, laying out what we believe it will cost to deliver your services from April that year to March the following year. You then pay this estimated amount monthly for the next 12 months. By paying small, regular amounts, you get the services you need without having to pay a huge one-off cost at the end of the year. We need to estimate as we can’t always know what work will need doing, such as clearing up after a storm. 

In the September of the following year, we check our estimate against the actual cost. If the cost is less than estimated, you'll get a credit on your rent account. If it's more than estimated, we'll send you a debit note, asking you to pay the difference. We work hard to make sure your estimate is as accurate as possible and you’ll only ever pay the actual costs incurred as we never profit through service charges. 

• If you paid £20 a month from April 2023 to March 2024, and then we found the actual cost was £18 a month, we would contact you in September 2024 to credit you £24 (£2 a month).