Nine families in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, have won a legal battle against their housing association after their monthly service charges skyrocketed from around £70 to over £300 - an increase of more than 300 per cent. The residents, living in a block called Coombe Lodge, took housing provider Curo to tribunal, and have now secured a reduction to just over £100 per month.

Curo, for its part, insists it had "already agreed these reductions before the tribunal took place." Which is a bit like claiming you were totally going to break up with them first. The provider added that it's "trying to avoid large bills that leaseholders aren't expecting" while balancing fire safety measures with minimizing financial impact - a balance that, for the residents, had apparently been tipped rather dramatically in one direction.

Alan Rice from Weston Housing Action said the residents are "ecstatic." He noted that "quite a few people told us that we wouldn't win, but we were persistent and we got the result we wanted." So, persistence: still undefeated against bureaucratic inertia.

The dispute centred on Coombe Lodge, which contains nine flats, all under shared ownership - a scheme where residents buy a portion of their property and pay rent on the rest. When the service charge went up, one resident had to take on an extra job, while others worried they simply couldn't afford it.

Curo said the extra money was primarily to boost the block's sinking fund - essentially a long-term savings account for building costs. Rice acknowledged there is "some need" for a sinking fund, but called the increase "devastating" for residents. "Although they were sold to them as affordable homes, suddenly they weren't affordable any more," he said.

Residents will now be reimbursed the excess charges they've paid. Curo, in response, offered a masterclass in stating the obvious: "There are always maintenance costs linked to owning a flat in a block, and we completely understand that these can be a shock when significant work is needed." They added that sinking funds help spread costs across several years, and expressed hope to "continue to work constructively with residents at Coombe Lodge to resolve all the remaining issues going forward."

Meanwhile, the law remains a bit of a wild west: there is no limit on how much a service charge can increase. A law passed in 2024, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act, should eventually force managing agents to provide a full breakdown of costs, but it is yet to be fully implemented. It promises leaseholders clearer bills and the right to look back at service charge information over the past six years - a timeline that may or may not align with how long it feels to wait for relief.

And the problem is not confined to Weston-super-Mare. Samantha Young, who lives in a Curo-managed block in Twerton, Bath, says her annual service charge rose from £990 to more than £6,000 - an increase she calls "astronomical." She plans to take her case to the ombudsman. "It is absolutely not affordable," she said. "This is higher than what you'd pay in zone one in London for flats with gyms and concierges. It quite frankly feels like we're receiving nothing."

Curo told the BBC it was "having ongoing conversations with Ms Young about how we can work together to resolve this, and we visited her at home this week to agree a way forward." Which is reassuring, though perhaps not as reassuring as a service charge that doesn't require a second job to cover.