Does It Cost £4,000 to Ask Peabody What You Are Paying For?

By David Wood · Published 8 October 2026

Peabody has told residents on several estates that their service charge accounts for two years may not be ready until April 2027. When one resident asked for the figures sooner, they say a Peabody service charge specialist told them it would need an external audit costing about £3,000; the written follow-up put the cost at up to £4,000. Section 21 does not require a full audit. Is Peabody trying to avoid showing residents the accounts?

The letter

In late September, leaseholders and shared owners on several Peabody estates received a letter in substantially the same form (a redacted copy is in our evidence log). It apologises that the service charge account for 2025/26 is not ready and says Peabody will send it "by 1 April 2027", possibly sooner as accounts are issued in phases. For 2024/25, Peabody had said it expected to send the account by 30 September 2026. The letter now says: "We're sorry, but your account will be delayed again." Both years are promised by 1 April 2027.

The letter is a section 20B notice. Under section 20B of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, a landlord generally cannot recover costs it first demands more than 18 months after incurring them. The exception is where, within those 18 months, it tells the leaseholder in writing that the costs have been incurred and that they will have to contribute. The notice is intended to preserve that route.

What stands out is the delay. Peabody's own website still tells homeowners they will receive the actual accounts for April 2025 to March 2026 in September 2026. The letter says Peabody "needed a little more time to check the figures carefully". By April 2027, the 2024/25 year will have ended two years earlier and 2025/26 one year earlier. Residents report receiving the letter in Reading, west London, south-east London, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire as well as east London. I have not counted the estates affected and do not suggest every Peabody scheme is.

The sums in the letters are building or estate totals, not household bills. The FAQ says so ("it isn't the amount you'll have to pay") and tells residents to keep paying their usual service charges. It also assures residents that the figure in the notice is the most they can be asked to contribute towards. Totals residents have shared publicly run from about £5,000 to £161,000 per scheme or block, across schemes of very different sizes.

Anyone selling is told to alert their solicitor, and that money may be held back from the sale until the final account is ready. Until that account arrives, neither seller nor buyer can know what the final bill will be.

What Peabody put in writing

Some residents responded the way the law allows, by asking for a summary of the costs under section 21 of the Act. One leaseholder said publicly that they were then told up to £4,000 would be added to their next service charge if they confirmed their request. Others have reported the same figure.

I have seen one such explanation in writing. A resident says that earlier this month a Peabody service charge specialist told them by phone they would need to pay about £3,000 for an external audit to get a section 21 response. The resident asked for that in writing, and the same specialist emailed afterwards, thanking them for the call. The email said a section 21 response has to be completed by an external auditor, and that its cost, up to £4,000, is included in the following year's service charge accounts. It also steered the resident towards section 22 instead, describing it as more useful and free, provided it is used within six months of receiving the year-end accounts.

On the resident's account, the call presented the cost as theirs to pay. The email puts it into the scheme's service charge accounts instead, without saying how it would be shared; I have asked Peabody. Either way, the message to a resident deciding whether to ask is that asking costs money, possibly thousands of pounds.

Taken alone, a reference to an external auditor need not mean a full audit: the accountant who certifies a section 21 summary must be eligible to act as one. The concern is how the cost was presented to someone exercising a statutory right. The resident says they were told an external audit was necessary; the written follow-up warned of a cost of up to £4,000 and recommended waiting for the annual accounts to use section 22 instead. That could discourage a resident from pursuing their request. Section 21 requires accountant's certification where applicable, not a full audit. Peabody needs to explain what work the proposed charge would cover, which lease provision permits its recovery, and whether it will provide the statutory summary on time without requiring the resident to accept that cost.

The reports began about six to eight weeks after Peabody pleaded guilty, on 11 August 2026, to failing without reasonable excuse to provide a section 21 summary. It is not one specialist's view, either: I understand at least one other member of Peabody's service charge team has given residents a similar explanation. Whether that reflects guidance to staff is for Peabody to say. Either way, residents are being told to wait for accounts that may not arrive until April 2027, and that asking sooner will cost them. One resident has told me they would have withdrawn a request over the cost had they not sought advice. I know of no case where the charge has been applied, or a request withdrawn because of it, and I have asked Peabody whether either has happened.

A summary is not an audit

Section 21 lets a leaseholder ask, in writing, for a summary of the costs in the landlord's last completed accounting year. The landlord must reply within one month of the request or six months after that year ends, whichever is later. For a request made now about the year to 31 March 2026, that means one month: about five months before the date in Peabody's letter.¹

Where more than four homes pay the charges, the summary must be certified by an independent qualified accountant. A certificate is the accountant's opinion that the summary is fair, contains what the law requires and is supported by the records produced to them. An audit is a wider examination of the accounts themselves. The law asks for the first, not the second, and Peabody's own accountants described their work on a section 21 response issued this September as neither an audit nor a review.²

Section 21 sets no fee, and does not make an answer conditional on anyone accepting a cost. Whether a certificate's cost can go into the service charge depends on the lease. In Rettke-Grover v Needleman and Wolfryd the Upper Tribunal refused a landlord its accountant's fees for certifying the service charge, because, under the terms of that particular lease, its management fee already covered that work. Peabody's website says its own management charge covers "preparing, calculating and issuing service charge statements". That does not settle the position under every lease, but Peabody should say which clause it relies on, and why certifying one statement would cost extra.

Once a resident has a summary, section 22 gives them six months to ask to inspect the invoices and receipts behind it. Inspection is free; reasonable charges may apply to copies. Failing without reasonable excuse to comply with either section is a criminal offence. In August, Peabody was convicted of failing to provide a section 21 summary.

What the FAQ leaves out

The FAQ sent with the letter asks: "Can I see the invoices for these costs?" Its answer: "Yes, once we've sent you your final service charge account." With final accounts promised by 1 April 2027, that suggests residents must wait until then to see any invoice for either year.

Peabody has given the same timetable to at least one MP, telling the MP's office it expects to issue "all outstanding accounts by 1 April 2027". That suggests a delay across the organisation rather than a handful of schemes.

That is not the whole position. A section 20B notice does not suspend sections 21 and 22. A resident who asks for a section 21 summary now is entitled to one, normally within a month, and can then ask to inspect the documents behind it. The FAQ does not mention that route.

The specialist's email points the same way, recommending section 22 and tying free inspection to the year-end accounts. Annual accounts can themselves count as a summary for this purpose, and section 22 can follow them. The problem is the insistence on waiting: on Peabody's account, inspection opens only when accounts delayed to April 2027 arrive, while a section 21 request produces a summary of the latest year within weeks.

A new section 21 request covers the latest completed year, 2025/26. It does not by itself produce the delayed 2024/25 account. Many leases also set their own deadline for annual accounts, and residents should check theirs.

Five days in Aldgate

Residents at my own development, a mixed-tenure block in Aldgate, east London, had a different experience. Eighteen residents sent section 21 requests for 2025/26 in late August. Peabody's delay letter, dated 24 September 2026, said the 2025/26 account would take until 1 April 2027.

Five days later, on 29 September, Peabody sent its response to those requests, with an accountant's certificate. No one warned us of a £4,000 cost or asked us to accept one first, and no such charge has been notified to us.

My development is not typical. We have been asking for this information since 2023, and Peabody pleaded guilty at Thames Magistrates' Court in August 2026 after I brought a private prosecution as chair of our residents' association. The full paper trail is in What does Peabody have to hide? The question for every other estate is why their requests should be treated any differently.

What residents can do

In my view, the delays are scandalous. Peabody's own website promised the 2025/26 accounts by September 2026; residents are now told to wait until April 2027, two years after the end of 2024/25. I also consider Peabody's account of section 22 legally misleading. The FAQ and the specialist's email both tell residents to wait for final accounts before seeing an invoice, when the law gives them a summary within a month and the right to inspect what lies behind it. And I believe the £4,000 warning is designed to have a chilling effect. It arrived weeks after a conviction for failing to provide exactly this information, it attaches a large, unexplained cost to a statutory right that carries no fee, and it nearly stopped at least one request.

Residents do not have to wait. Send a section 21 request in writing for the last completed year, which for most Peabody residents is 2025/26, and keep a record of the date; the reply is normally due within a month, certified by a qualified accountant where more than four homes pay the charges. If Peabody mentions an audit or a cost, ask for it in writing, with the lease clause it relies on, and ask Peabody to confirm it will reply on time whether or not you accept the cost. Do not agree to commission an audit. Once you have the summary, you have six months to ask to inspect the invoices under section 22. Keep your section 20B notice and keep paying your normal service charge. If Peabody misses the deadline or gives you wrong information, complain to Peabody and then to the Housing Ombudsman. A step-by-step guide and templates are on the Support & resources page; check that any template names the right accounting year.

Questions put to Peabody

I put the following questions to Peabody on 8 October 2026 and asked for a response by 5pm on 15 October 2026. I have published before that deadline, which remains open, and will update this article when Peabody responds.

1. Does the specialist's written explanation represent Peabody's position? The resident reports being told by phone that they would need to pay about £3,000 for an external audit, while the follow-up email described up to £4,000 being included in the service charge accounts. What is Peabody's explanation of that sequence? Have other staff given similar advice, and is it based on guidance? If so, when was that guidance issued and who approved it?
2. Does Peabody distinguish between the accountant's certification required by section 21(6) and a full audit? What work was being proposed in this instance?
3. Is the £4,000 figure an estimate, a quotation, a maximum charge, a fixed fee or a cost already incurred? Does it include VAT, and how was it calculated?
4. Who would bear that cost, and how would it be allocated? What lease provision does Peabody rely on to recover it?
5. What additional work would the charge cover beyond Peabody's existing accounting and management arrangements? How would Peabody avoid charging more than once where several residents request the same summary?
6. Will Peabody comply with section 21 requests within the applicable statutory deadline without requiring residents to agree to an additional cost?
7. Has any such charge been applied? Is Peabody aware of any resident withdrawing or declining to pursue a request after receiving this cost warning?
8. Will Peabody clarify its FAQ and staff advice to explain the route from a section 21 summary to section 22 inspection, without requiring residents to wait for delayed final annual accounts?
9. How many schemes received notices delaying accounts to 1 April 2027? Why are accounts for both years outstanding, and what timetable does Peabody have for issuing them?

Peabody had not responded at the time of publication.

Peabody, and anyone else referred to in this article, may respond through our corrections and right of reply page.