Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, ss.21–23
Ask your landlord what they actually spent
If your service charge goes up and down with your landlord's costs, you can require a written summary of those costs, and then inspect the invoices and receipts behind it. This guide covers making the request, working out the deadline, and checking whether what comes back is good enough.
It is written to be handed to an AI assistant, which drafts and checks alongside you. You can also just read it.
Start here
Use it with an AI assistant
One prompt, one button. It asks your assistant to open the full guide, and carries a shorter version of the guide with it in case it cannot.
Please open and read this document: https://peabodytrust.co.uk/resources/s21-guide.txt It is a resident-written guide to requesting service charge information under sections 21, 22 and 23 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. I am giving it to you as reference material. When you have read it, tell me the version number and legal verification date shown at the top, then ask me which stage I am at. If you cannot open it, tell me that you cannot and rely on the shorter text below instead. In that case, also tell me I can read the full guide at https://peabodytrust.co.uk/resources/guide.html Below this message is a shorter version of the same guide. (If I have attached it as a file instead, please read that.) I am giving it to you as reference material for this conversation.
How to use it
- Select Copy the prompt. A short version of the guide is copied with it, so it works whether or not your assistant can open web pages.
- Open your AI assistant and start a new conversation.
- Paste and send. It is a long message, which is expected.
- Check that it quotes back a version number and a check code from the block above. Compare both character by character.
- Either pair is a pass. Codes ending in L mean it opened the full guide. Codes for the short version mean it is working from the abridged copy pasted with your prompt, so check the full guide yourself if your situation is unusual.
- If neither pair comes back, or a code is shortened or altered, it has not read the guide properly. Do not rely on what it tells you.
- Say whether you are preparing a request, waiting for a response, or reviewing something your landlord has sent.
The version number sits at the top of each guide and the check code at the very end, so quoting both shows the assistant received the whole document rather than the first part of it. The two documents carry different markers, which is how you can tell which one it read. Prefer a file? Download the full guide as plain text and attach it instead.
Before you rely on any of this
This is not legal advice. It is information, written by residents rather than lawyers, and it cannot take account of your lease, your tenancy, your landlord, or anything unusual about your situation. Every lease is different. Nothing here creates a professional relationship of any kind, and no responsibility is accepted for what you do with it.
AI assistants get things wrong, confidently. This guide is designed to make an assistant more accurate. It cannot make one reliable. AI is a useful tool but you should verify what it says.
The specific things to watch for:
- Claiming to have read a document, a statute or a web page it has not opened.
- Inventing citations, case names, section numbers or web addresses that look entirely plausible.
- Getting date arithmetic wrong, which matters here because your deadline depends on it.
- Quoting the wrong version of section 21. The live legislation.gov.uk page for it shows a version that is not in force, and assistants fall into this repeatedly.
- Dropping required wording from a letter because it reads like boilerplate.
- Stating an uncertain interpretation as though it were settled law.
Check everything that matters yourself. Open the legislation and confirm the provision is still in force. Check every date and figure against your own lease, demands and statements. Compare any letter you are given against the model wording in the guide before you send it. If an assistant cannot quote the version number exactly, it has not read this guide and you should not act on what it tells you.
Where to get help that is not AI-generated. The Social Housing Action Campaign publishes a substantial library of resident guides, written by people, at shaction.org/resources. That includes Guide and Templates: Requesting Service Charge Information, the 2026 SHAC guide this page is based on. If you would rather not involve an AI assistant at all, use that document instead. It covers the same ground and no model sits between you and it.
For advice on your own circumstances, the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) gives free initial advice to leaseholders, and a solicitor or advice agency can advise where the facts are unusual or the consequences are significant. Where the law is unclear or the stakes are high, take advice before you act.