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Administration charges

What are administration charges?

In this guide

Administration charges are amounts that a landlord (freeholder) or their managing agent charges to an individual leaseholder. They’re separate from service charges, which are shared by all leaseholders in a building.

They include charges for:

  • granting approvals under the lease, or dealing with applications for approvals – for example if you need consent to make changes to your property, rent it out, run a business from your property or have a pet
  • providing information or documents, such as providing information to solicitors when you sell your property
  • dealing with late payment or non-payment of service charges or ground rent
  • dealing with you breaching the terms of the lease

Administration charges can include legal costs for action that the landlord takes. For example, they may charge you for their costs if they use a solicitor or apply to a tribunal to recover ground rent or service charges that you owe. But they can only do this if the lease includes an “indemnity” clause that specifically permits the landlord to recover these types of legal costs.

An administration charge may be variable, or a fixed amount set out in the lease.

Last updated:
1 December 2025
Next review:
1 December 2027
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