For long leaseholders of Southern Housing
Your lease. Your rights.
Your move.
A step-by-step guide to understanding your statutory rights as a long leaseholder, challenging your service charges, and holding Southern Housing accountable under the law.
Built by a leaseholder, for leaseholders — free, independent, and not affiliated with Southern Housing Group.
Before you begin
This site is for long leaseholders
If you own a leasehold property with a lease of more than 21 years — including shared ownership — you are a long leaseholder under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. You have powerful statutory rights that many residents don't know about.
These rights include: the right to demand a full breakdown of your service charges, the right to inspect every invoice and receipt, the right to challenge unreasonable charges at the First-tier Tribunal — and the right to organise collectively through a recognised Residents' Tenants Association. This site will walk you through each of them.
10 guided paths
Where are you in your journey?
Each path below is a self-contained guide. You can follow them in order or jump to where you are. The first four are good places to start.
Raising a complaint with Southern Housing
How to hold Southern Housing accountable to service enquiries and escalate properly.
Start this guide →Escalating to the Housing Ombudsman
After a Stage 2 response — how to refer your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.
Start this guide →Forming a Residents' Tenants Association
How to constitute, register, and gain recognition for your RTA — with document templates.
Start this guide →Requesting your service charge overview — Section 21
Your right to a written summary of all service charges. How to request it formally.
Start this guide →Requesting the proof — Section 22
How to inspect every invoice, receipt and contract underpinning your charges.
Start this guide →Due diligence on the documents
What to look for, what to record, and how to identify unsubstantiated charges.
Start this guide →Preparing a Scott Schedule
The formal document used at Tribunal to present disputed charges item by item.
Start this guide →Negotiating with Southern Housing
How to open productive dialogue with the service charge team before Tribunal.
Start this guide →Taking your claim to the FTT
How to make a formal application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).
Start this guide →What to expect at the FTT
The hearing process, evidence rules, how decisions are made, and what you can win.
Start this guide →Finding your starting point
Tell us where you are
Answer one question and we'll point you to the right guide.
I am...
What best describes your situation right now?
Frustrated with Southern Housing and not sure where to start
Start with how to raise a formal complaint.
Guide 01 — ComplaintsI've had a Stage 2 response and it hasn't resolved anything
Take it to the Housing Ombudsman.
Guide 02 — OmbudsmanI want to get organised with my neighbours
Form a recognised Residents' Tenants Association.
Guide 03 — RTAI want to see a full breakdown of what I've been charged
Request it under Section 21.
Guide 04 — Section 21I want to see the actual invoices behind my charges
Demand access under Section 22.
Guide 05 — Section 22I have the documents — now what do I look for?
Conduct due diligence on what you've received.
Guide 06 — Due diligenceI'm building a case and need to document disputed items
Prepare a Scott Schedule for Tribunal.
Guide 07 — Scott ScheduleI'm ready to take this to the Tribunal
How to apply to the First-tier Tribunal.
Guide 09 — FTT applicationHow this started
I became a shared owner in south-east London in September 2019 — my first home. At the time I was working in higher education at Goldsmiths, College London, and I'd taken on the lease with the straightforward expectation that the service charges I paid would reflect real costs, transparently accounted for.
That expectation, it turned out, was optimistic.
What I noticed early on was a disconnect: many general needs tenants in my estate and across Southern Housing (then Optivo) had a broadly positive view of the organisation. My experience as a leaseholder was markedly different. The intricacies of our small mixed estate — managed by a third-party managing agent appointed by the freeholder — seemed to be neither known nor of interest to Southern Housing. No one, it seemed, was paying close attention to what was actually being charged and why.
My time as a resident volunteer
Rather than immediately opposing Southern Housing, I chose to work with them. I volunteered as a resident representative from April 2021 to April 2024, spending the last year as Chair of the London Resident Panel.
My belief at the time was that genuine partnership was possible — that resident scrutiny would be welcomed as a way to improve services. I was wrong.
Apr 2021
Joined the Southern Housing (then Optivo) resident volunteering programme, motivated by a genuine belief in working in partnership.
Apr 2023 – Apr 2024
Chair of the London Resident Panel. This was the year London residents were badly affected by floods and fires. I proactively sought out affected residents to bring their stories into our meetings.
The breaking point
I was told I was neither allowed to seek out resident voices, nor engage with residents who approached me. At one panel meeting, an Executive told us simply to "trust" what they were doing when I asked a scrutinising question. I left in April 2024.
My honest assessment: Southern Housing uses resident engagement to rubber-stamp their own organisational priorities. In three years, I did not once see a topic emerge from the resident body, or a priority genuinely shaped by resident agendas. Scrutiny was tolerated only when it was decorative.
Building from the outside
Since 2024 I have put my energy where I believe it has real leverage: from the outside, with legal tools.
I brought together residents in my building to form a Residents' Tenants Association, which has now been formally recognised. As Chair, I have led our collective effort to challenge service charges levied on long leaseholders since 2019.
Between approximately 15 leaseholders, we are collectively challenging in excess of £100,000 in service charges that we believe are either unsubstantiated, unreasonably incurred, or improperly accounted for.
Everything I have learned — about statutory rights, formal complaints, Section 21 and 22 requests, due diligence, Scott Schedules, and Tribunal procedure — is on this website. For free.
Why I built this
This is not about making money. We are not here to profit from other people's difficulties with their landlord.
This is about balancing power. Southern Housing is a large, well-resourced organisation with a legal team, a compliance function, and decades of experience navigating disputes with individual residents who — almost by definition — know less than them about housing law. That information asymmetry is the problem this site exists to address.
If you are a long leaseholder with Southern Housing and you have doubts about your service charges, you have rights. Real, statutory rights. This site will help you exercise them.
This site provides practical guidance based on lived experience and publicly available legal information. It is not legal advice, and I am not a solicitor. For complex disputes or formal Tribunal proceedings, please also seek advice from a specialist housing lawyer or LEASE (the Leasehold Advisory Service), which offers free initial guidance.
Strength in numbers
Register your RTA.
Join the network.
Southern Housing manages over 78,000 properties. Individual RTAs fighting alone are easy to ignore. A coordinated network is not. Join other RTA officers who are organising, sharing knowledge, and holding Southern Housing accountable together.
Apply to join →Why join
Don't reinvent the wheel
Every RTA is navigating the same landlord, the same obligations, and often the same obstruction. What you've learned is valuable to others. What they know is valuable to you.
Share what works — and what doesn't
Which arguments land at Tribunal? Which complaint routes get results? Collective intelligence from dozens of RTAs is far more powerful than any single case.
Build a systemic picture
Individual complaints are easier to dismiss. The same failures across multiple buildings is a systemic finding — and that's what the Housing Ombudsman and the Regulator of Social Housing respond to.
Coordinate on evidence
If multiple RTAs are challenging the same contractor, managing agent, or insurance provider, that evidence becomes mutually reinforcing. You don't need to start from scratch.
Speak with one voice when it counts
A joint Ombudsman submission. A collective letter to Southern Housing's board. These carry weight because they represent hundreds of leaseholders, not one.
Peer support from people who've been there
The first time you open a service charge account is bewildering. Connect with RTAs who are a few steps ahead — and share what you know with those just starting out.
Become genuinely difficult to ignore
A single RTA in one block is manageable. A coordinated network across London and the south is a fundamentally different proposition.
The scale of the problem
This is bigger than one building
Southern Housing is one of the largest housing associations in England. The issues leaseholders face — opaque service charges, unresponsive management, statutory rights going unexercised — are not isolated. They are a pattern.
Patterns require a collective response. That is what this network exists to build.
Apply to join the network →Not yet an RTA?
Guide 03 walks you through forming and registering one — step by step.
Legal & Privacy
Last updated: June 2026 · oursouthernhousing.com
This page sets out the legal basis on which this site operates, how we handle personal data, and what protections exist for visitors and contributors. It is written in plain English. If anything is unclear, contact us directly.
Contents
1. Who we are
This website is operated by Sebastian Richter, Chair of the Inglis House Residents' and Tenants' Association, acting in a personal capacity as a long leaseholder of Southern Housing Group.
It is an independent, non-commercial resource created to help long leaseholders of Southern Housing understand and exercise their statutory rights under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and related legislation.
The site is not operated by, funded by, or affiliated with Southern Housing Group Ltd, any of its subsidiaries, or any other housing organisation.
2. No affiliation with Southern Housing
This site has no connection to Southern Housing Group Ltd. It is not an official Southern Housing resource, complaint portal, or resident engagement platform.
Southern Housing Group Ltd is a registered provider of social housing. This site does not speak on their behalf, represent their views, or have any authorisation from them.
If you need to contact Southern Housing directly, please use their official website at southernhousing.org.uk.
3. Use of the name "Southern Housing"
"Southern Housing" and related marks may be registered trademarks of Southern Housing Group Ltd. This site uses the name solely to identify the organisation being discussed — specifically, to help leaseholders of Southern Housing properties understand their rights in relation to that landlord.
This constitutes nominative fair use. Specifically:
- The name is used only to refer to Southern Housing Group Ltd as the relevant landlord
- No Southern Housing logo, visual identity, or brand assets are reproduced on this site
- Nothing on this site suggests endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation with Southern Housing Group Ltd
- The site makes no commercial use of the name
The domain name oursouthernhousing.com uses "Our" to reflect resident ownership of the resource — it is a residents' site about Southern Housing, not a site operated by Southern Housing. This distinction is made explicit throughout.
4. Guidance disclaimer
The content on this site is provided for general guidance and information purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.
While we have taken care to ensure the information is accurate and up to date, housing law and regulations can change. We make no warranty — express or implied — as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for purpose of any content on this site.
You should always seek independent legal advice before taking formal legal action, making applications to the First-tier Tribunal, or entering into negotiations with your landlord. Free initial advice is available from:
We accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on information provided on this site.
5. Privacy notice
This site takes your privacy seriously. We collect only what we need, we keep it only as long as necessary, and we never sell or share it without your explicit consent.
What we collect and why
When you register your RTA via the registration form, we collect:
- Your name — to address you personally
- Your email address — to send you relevant updates and meetup invitations
- Your building name and borough — to connect you with geographically relevant RTAs
- Details about your RTA and case stage — to tailor the support and information we share
- Your meetup preferences — to organise appropriate events
We do not collect payment information, government identifiers, or sensitive personal data beyond what you voluntarily provide.
Legal basis for processing
We process your data on the basis of your consent, given when you submit the registration form. You can withdraw consent at any time by emailing contact@oursouthernhousing.com.
How we store your data
Registration data is stored in Google Forms and Google Sheets, which are subject to Google's privacy policy and GDPR-compliant data processing terms. Data is accessible only to the officers of the Inglis House Residents' and Tenants' Association.
How long we keep it
We retain your data for as long as you remain an active participant in the network, or until you request deletion — whichever comes first. We will not retain data beyond three years without re-confirming your consent.
Who we share it with
We do not share your personal details with any third party without your explicit consent. We will never share your name, email, or building details with Southern Housing Group Ltd or any of its agents.
We may, with your consent, connect you with other RTAs in the network — but only after asking you explicitly.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Correct inaccurate data
- Request deletion of your data
- Withdraw consent at any time
- Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk
To exercise any of these rights, email contact@oursouthernhousing.com and we will respond within 30 days.
Cookies and analytics
This site does not currently use cookies or analytics tracking. If this changes, this notice will be updated and visitors will be informed.
6. Copyright
The original written content of this site — including guide text, page copy, and the About section — is copyright © Sebastian Richter, 2024–2026. All rights reserved.
You are welcome to share links to this site freely. You may quote short passages with attribution. You may not reproduce substantial portions of the content without permission.
The statutory guidance on this site summarises publicly available legislation. The legislation itself is Crown copyright and is reproduced under the terms of the Open Government Licence.
7. Contact
For any queries relating to this legal notice, privacy, or data held about you:
Sebastian Richter
Chair, Inglis House Residents' and Tenants' Association
contact@oursouthernhousing.com
We aim to respond to all enquiries within 5 working days.
This page was last updated in June 2026. We will update it whenever our practices change and will note the date of any revision at the top of the page.