A service charge can be entirely reasonable, properly budgeted, and genuinely owed under the lease, and still be legally unrecoverable, because the demand that asked for it was not in the right form. For a self-managed block, the format of a demand is not administrative housekeeping. It is the line between money you can enforce and money that sits unpaid and uncollectable until you fix the paperwork. This article sets out what a service charge demand must contain in England to stand up.

There are two separate questions hiding inside every demand. The first is whether the charge is due under the lease: is it a cost the lease actually lets you recover, apportioned the way the lease says. The second is whether it has been validly demanded. A block can get the first right and lose on the second, and when a leaseholder challenges a demand at the First-tier Tribunal, it is very often the second question, the technical validity of the paperwork, that decides it rather than the reasonableness of the sum.

Four statutory requirements sit on top of whatever your lease says. Miss any one of them and the law treats the money as not being due, or hands the leaseholder a right to withhold it, until you put the defect right. None of them is difficult. All of them are easy to forget when you are a volunteer director sending a demand off a spreadsheet.

The four requirements at a glance

Two of these come from the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and two from the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. It is worth getting the Act right: the name-and-address duties people often call "section 47 and 48" are in the 1987 Act, not the 1985 one.

Requirement
Statute and effect if you get it wrong
Landlord's name and address on the demand
Section 47, LTA 1987. The service charge is treated as not being due until the name and address are supplied.
An address in England or Wales for serving notices
Section 48, LTA 1987. Rent and service charges are treated as not being due until the address is notified.
Summary of tenants' rights and obligations with every demand
Section 21B, LTA 1985. The leaseholder may lawfully withhold payment, and late-payment terms are suspended, until it is provided.
Demand made within 18 months of the cost being incurred
Section 20B, LTA 1985. The leaseholder is not liable for the cost, unless notified in writing in time.

1. Put the landlord's name and address on the demand

Section 47, Landlord and Tenant Act 1987

On every demand

Every written demand for rent or other sums due under the lease, and that includes service charges and administration charges, must contain the name and address of the landlord. If that address is not in England or Wales, the demand must also give an address in England or Wales. Crucially, this must be the landlord's own address, its registered office or place of business will do, but the managing agent's address on its own is not enough. If you leave it off, section 47(2) says any part of the sum demanded that is a service charge or administration charge is treated for all purposes as not being due until you furnish the name and address.

Reference: Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 47.

What good looks like The name of the landlord or management company and its actual registered-office or trading address printed on the face of every demand, alongside (not instead of) any managing agent details. A demand that shows only "care of" the agent is a demand waiting to be challenged.

2. Give a proper address for serving notices

Section 48, Landlord and Tenant Act 1987

Notify once, in writing, and keep it current

Section 48 is the sister duty to section 47, and the two are constantly confused. Section 48 requires the landlord to give leaseholders, by written notice, an address in England or Wales at which notices, including proceedings, may be served on the landlord. Until that address has been notified, any rent or service charge otherwise due is treated as not being due. This is not the same as printing an address on a demand; it is a positive notification of a service address, and in practice it is sensible to give it and then repeat it on every demand so there is no argument about whether it was ever provided.

Reference: Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 48.

What good looks like A standing written notice to every leaseholder stating an England or Wales address for service of notices on the landlord, issued when the company takes over management and reissued whenever the address changes, with the same address carried on each demand and statement.

3. Attach the summary of tenants' rights and obligations

Section 21B, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985

With every single service charge demand

A demand for service charges must be accompanied by a summary of the rights and obligations of tenants in relation to service charges. This is not something you write yourself. The form and content are prescribed by the Service Charges (Summary of Rights and Obligations, and Transitional Provision) (England) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/1257). The prescribed summary must carry the exact title "Service Charges - Summary of tenants' rights and obligations", use the wording set out in the Schedule to those Regulations word for word, and be legible in typewritten or printed characters of at least 10 point. If the summary does not go out with the demand, section 21B(3) lets the leaseholder withhold payment, and while they do, any provision of the lease about non-payment or late payment (interest, forfeiture triggers) has no effect.

Reference: Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 21B.

What good looks like The current prescribed summary, copied exactly from SI 2007/1257, sent physically with every demand as standard, not held back to be supplied "on request". A template that bakes the summary into the demand pack removes the single most common enforceability defect on small blocks.

4. Demand within 18 months of the cost

Section 20B, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985

18 months from when the cost was incurred

If relevant costs were incurred more than 18 months before a demand for the service charge is served, the leaseholder is not liable to pay so much of the charge as reflects those costs. The one escape, in section 20B(2), is that you told the leaseholder in writing, within that 18-month window, that the costs had been incurred and that they would later be required to contribute to them through the service charge. That written notice buys you time; silence does not. The clock runs from when the cost was incurred, which for most purposes means when the invoice was received or paid, not when you eventually get round to billing.

Reference: Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 20B.

What good looks like Costs billed promptly through the normal service charge cycle. Where a large one-off cost cannot be demanded quickly (a major works invoice landing between accounting years, say), a dated section 20B(2) notice sent to every leaseholder confirming the cost has been incurred and will be recharged.

A reasonable charge, demanded in the wrong form, is not yet a debt. Get the four requirements right and an unpaid demand is enforceable. Get one wrong and the money simply sits there, uncollectable, until you cure the defect, and by then the 18-month clock may already have run.

When there is no obvious landlord: RMCs and RTM companies

Directors of a Residents Management Company or a Right to Manage company sometimes assume these duties are for "proper" landlords, not a residents' company demanding money from its own members. That is a misreading. The definition of "landlord" in section 58 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 extends, for the purposes of the section 47 and 48 duties, to any person who has a right to enforce payment of the service charge. If your RMC or RTM company is the party issuing demands and collecting the money, it wears the landlord's hat for these purposes and must comply. The company's name and registered office go on the demand, and the company notifies an address for service. Being run by volunteers does not lift the obligation.

The trap where section 47, 48 and 20B collide

Here is the mistake that costs blocks real money. Because sections 47 and 48 say a charge is "treated as not being due" until you supply the missing information, directors assume they have unlimited time: fix the address whenever, and the demand springs back to life. The suspension is real, but it does not stop the section 20B clock. Section 20B runs from when the cost was incurred, regardless of any defect in the demand. So a board that forgets the section 48 notice, and only discovers and cures it twenty months after the works invoice, may have satisfied sections 47 and 48 yet find the underlying cost is now time-barred under section 20B, with no saving notice ever served. The lesson is to treat the two as independent: get the name, address and summary right on the demand and protect the cost with a timely section 20B(2) notice whenever billing will be slow.

What is changing: the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024

A standardised service charge demand form is on its way. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 gives the government power to prescribe a set format for demands, so that leaseholders receive standardised, comparable information about how their charges are calculated. The government consulted on the detail in 2025, and the secondary legislation that will actually switch these provisions on is still being finalised. As of mid-2026 the standardised-demand rules are not yet in force, so the four requirements above remain the live law. When the new form does commence, expect it to apply to buildings above a size threshold and to carry its own "not properly demanded, not payable" consequence, so it is worth watching for the commencement regulations rather than being caught out by them. We will update this article when they land.

The demand that actually stands up

Pulling it together, a service charge demand from a self-managed block in England is on solid ground when it does all of the following:

Tick those and an unpaid demand is genuinely enforceable, through the county court or by an application to the First-tier Tribunal for a determination that the charge is payable. Miss one and you may still be right about the money and unable to collect it. On a small block these are not hard standards to meet. They are simply easy to miss when nobody is watching the paperwork, which is exactly where a proper demand template earns its keep.

Take the next step

Are your demands actually enforceable?

The free Modbury Remote Compliance Score checks your service charge and demand process alongside the other core obligations for your block. A 15-question quiz, a personal score, a list of gaps with statute references, and an estimated cost to close them. No payment, no sales call.

Start the free quiz → Get the demand templates

If you would rather not build the paperwork yourself, the Manage Your Own Block toolkit includes legally-formatted demand notices with the prescribed summary built in, and the Block Compliance Check reviews how your block bills and recovers service charges as part of a full audit. And if you would sooner hand the whole administrative layer over, that is what the core Modbury Remote service is for: budgets, demands and collections, done properly, for a fixed annual fee.

Related reading

This article is general guidance for directors of self-managed blocks, not legal advice, and it summarises the position in England only; Wales has its own equivalent regulations. The requirements that apply to your demands depend on your lease and your building. If a demand is being challenged, take advice from a solicitor or your local leasehold advisory service, and read the provisions in full at legislation.gov.uk or via LEASE.