Freeholders on estates

Service charges

If your house is on one of our council estates, you may be asked to pay a service charge. This pays for services you share with others and shared areas on your estate. This is explained in the terms of the transfer document for your property. 

As a freeholder you do not pay anything that is only for tenants or leaseholders. For example, we do not charge you for:

• any repairs or maintenance of tenanted properties
• collecting rent
• dealing with and letting of empty properties
• managing tenant transfer requests
• management of blocks of flats

Read our page about annual service charges for more information.

From our homeowner page you can make a service charge payment, set up a direct debit for your service charges and view your service charge account statements.

Your estate 

Report any repairs needed to communal areas or services (including communal heating and hot water systems) on your estate.

Report a repair online or call 020 7527 2000.

Our Housing office also has free phones you can use, during office hours. Outside these hours, report emergency repairs by calling 020 7527 2000.

Reporting a change of address

It is important that we have up to date contact details for you. We can't accept any address changes over the phone, so please send these to us in writing, either by emailing homeownership@islington.gov.uk or write to:

Home Ownership Services
222 Upper Street
London N1 1XR

Selling or remortgaging your house

When you sell or remortgage your house, your solicitor will probably ask us to confirm details about your service charges. We charge a fee for providing “freehold sell-on packs” and “freehold remortgage packs”. You or your solicitor can pay for a sell on pack and pay for a remortgage pack online.