House owner paying service charges

You pay your service charge in addition to your rent payment and we’ve broken 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.

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 charges, working hard to balance good quality services and value for money. We want to make sure you’re safe in your home, 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.

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).