This guide is written for solicitors, trainees and law students in England and Wales.
The new service charge demand form is one of four documents landlords will have to produce under Part 4 of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. The government confirmed the package on 15 July 2026. This checklist sets out what goes in each document, the deadlines attached to them, and what conveyancers should expect to ask for.
Who is this checklist for?
Landlords and managing agents, who have to produce the documents. Residential conveyancers, who will be asking for them.
It also matters if you act for a registered provider of social housing. Their tenants sit under a partly different regime.
Nothing here is law yet. The measures arrive through a series of statutory instruments, and the government plans to start them as soon as possible in 2027.
What must the service charge demand form contain?
A prescribed format, replacing one a landlord could largely design itself.
- The first demand of each year must come with a budget for the block, building or development.
- That budget must compare against spending in the previous accounting period.
- Rules will prescribe any further demand issued during the year.
- They will prescribe the reconciliation demand that goes out with the final accounts.
Today the law asks for very little. A demand must carry the landlord’s name and address, or an address in England and Wales for service, plus the summary of rights and obligations. Beyond that the lease governs, and the landlord chooses.
What goes in the annual report?
This is the document that does not exist today. Plan for it first.
- Key contacts.
- Important dates under the lease.
- The condition of the building.
- Past and planned statutory surveys.
- Major works planned over the next two years.
- Whether the reserve fund covers those works.
It goes to leaseholders and to shared owners.
Read that list from a conveyancer’s desk and it looks familiar. It answers several standard pre-contract enquiries in one document. Better still, it will exist whether or not anyone asks for it.
Current versus new requirements
| Requirement | Now | From commencement in 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Service charge demand | Landlord’s name and address, summary of rights and obligations, then whatever the lease requires | Prescribed form, with a budget and a comparison against the previous period |
| Annual building report | None | Prescribed report covering contacts, lease dates, condition, surveys and planned major works |
| Service charge accounts | Format largely a matter for the landlord | Standardised |
| Buildings insurance | Limited disclosure | Prescribed disclosure |
| Third-party information requests | No fixed deadline on the landlord | Landlord must make the request within a maximum of 15 days |
| Inspection in person | Right exists, timing unfixed | Landlord must arrange within three calendar months, with progress updates |
The deadlines to diarise
Two run against the landlord, and both are new.
Where a landlord needs information from a third party, it must ask within a maximum of 15 days. The rules do not say when the third party has to answer. They do put the landlord on a clock for the part it controls, which is where most requests stall today.
For inspection in person, the landlord must make reasonable arrangements within three calendar months of the request. It also has to keep the leaseholder posted on progress.
Does this override the lease?
No, and the distinction is worth holding onto.
The prescribed documents govern how a demand looks and what information travels with it. The lease still governs what a landlord may charge for, when it may charge, and how it apportions the cost. A landlord cannot use the new form to recover something the lease does not allow.
That matters when a leaseholder challenges a charge. The form is a transparency measure. It is not a new charging power, and it does not cure a defective demand under the lease.
What about buildings insurance?
Prescribed disclosure, confirmed in the same package.
Buildings insurance has been one of the sharpest complaints in leasehold for years. Leaseholders pay the premium and often cannot see what sits inside it. The confirmed measures require landlords to set out the position rather than leaving it to a line in the accounts.
Pair that with standardised service charge accounts and the direction is clear. The reform is about showing the working.
How much notice will landlords get?
Twelve months for private landlords. Twenty-four for social landlords, because their systems changes are heavier.
There is a carve-out to know if you act for registered providers. Their tenants will get the standardised demand form where they pay fixed and variable service charges. They will not get the annual report. The Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements land in October 2026, and the government does not want two overlapping regimes at once.
One place to see everything a landlord will have to produce, and everything a conveyancer will be able to ask for, before the rules commence in 2027.
Checklist for landlords and managing agents
- Map every building you manage against the annual report contents. Where is the condition data? Where are the survey records?
- Check whether those records are presentable, not merely held. A report that goes to leaseholders has a different standard from a file note.
- Build a two-year forward view of major works, then test it against the reserve fund.
- Write a process for information requests, with the 15-day and three-month clocks in it.
- Review your accounts format against the coming standard.
- Check what you currently disclose on buildings insurance.
- Diarise the notice period that applies to you: 12 months if private, 24 if social.
Checklist for conveyancers
- Review enquiry packs against the annual report contents. Asking twice for a prescribed document wastes time on both sides.
- Decide how you will treat a seller whose landlord has not produced a report once the duty bites.
- Tell leasehold buyers today that the disclosure they get will look different from the disclosure a buyer gets in 2028.
- Add the 15-day and three-month deadlines to your chasing schedule, so a slow landlord can be held to something.
- Keep asking your usual questions in the meantime. Nothing changes until the instruments are laid.
Where does this sit in the wider reform?
It is one part of a long programme, and the parts move at different speeds.
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 also covers lease extensions and enfranchisement, and it bans the sale of most new leasehold houses. Those parts have their own commencement timetable.
Separately, a Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill is still in the pipeline. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee reported on the draft in May 2026 and has been pressing for the final bill this autumn. The government missed the deadline to respond, so that timetable now looks tight.
The practical read for a conveyancer is that service charge transparency arrives before tenure reform does.
Common mistakes
Treating this as law now. None of it is in force. The measures come through statutory instruments and start in 2027.
Assuming social and private landlords are treated alike. They are not, on the annual report or on notice periods.
Reading 15 days as a response deadline. It is a deadline for the landlord to ask, not for the third party to answer.
Thinking the form fixes the lease. A prescribed demand does not create a right to charge.
Waiting for the instruments before touching records. Building condition and survey data take longer to assemble than a form takes to fill.
Official sources
- Government response to the Strengthening leaseholder protections consultation, 15 July 2026
- The original consultation, setting out the position being replaced
Our news coverage of the confirmed package has the announcement in full. For the wider conveyancing picture, see the home buying reforms.
Last updated
3 August 2026. Due for review when the first statutory instruments are laid.