Why greater oversight matters.
Every figure on this page is taken from the estate's own signed service charge accounts and its published budget. Nothing here is an allegation. It is simply the record, set out plainly, so you can see why we believe leaseholders should have a much stronger say in how this money is spent.
The budget has run well ahead of inflation.
The combined estate service charge budget rose 67.5% between 2021 and 2026, around 11% a year compounded. Over the same window the cost of living rose roughly 20%. However you measure it, our charges have grown at three to four times the rate of inflation.
And the budget is not the ceiling. The 2025 accounts came in around 16% over budget, and the difference is recovered from residents afterwards through balancing charges. None of the more than 1,450 leaseholders who pay these charges gets a vote on how they are set or spent.
Two things are true at once. Running an estate of this quality involves substantial, sometimes unavoidable expenditure, and part of the increase reflects wider pressures on energy, insurance, staffing and building-safety compliance that any manager would face. The case for RTM is not that these costs can simply be removed. It is that the people funding them should have clearer information, earlier scrutiny, and a direct role in appointing and holding to account the professional managing agent.
Source: analysis of the published estate service charge budgets and accounts, 2021 to 2026. 2026 is a budget, not an outturn, and recent budgets have been overshot. Figures exclude balancing charges, so the cash actually demanded runs higher.
Some of the biggest overspends, line by line.
These are actual costs against the budgets residents were given for 2025, taken from the signed accounts. They are the kind of lines a leaseholder-controlled company would scrutinise before the money was spent, not months afterwards.
Landscaping
Nearly 3× budget
Residents were charged £348,844 against a budget of £124,194, about 181% over. It was over budget in both phases every year from 2022 to 2025, and the published 2026 budget raises the line 68% while conceding that standards had fallen short in previous years.
Reactive repairs (M&E call-outs)
Nearly 6× budget
Reactive mechanical and electrical call-outs cost £672,444 against a budget of £115,009, about 485% over. Repeated emergency call-outs are exactly the pattern that planned, preventative maintenance is meant to reduce.
General repairs & maintenance
3 to 5× budget, five years running
For five consecutive years, in both phases, repairs and maintenance spending came in at between 2.3 and 4.9 times the budget set. The published accounts describe the budgets as historically under-provisioned, but it is residents who pay the balance.
Security staffing
50% over budget
Security staffing cost £1,584,205 against a budget of £1,055,518, about 50% over. Staff costs overall ran 16.5% over budget across the estate in the same year.
Water (2024)
About 6.7× budget
Combined water charges reached £254,363 against a budget of £38,038, a further example of a budget residents simply could not rely on.
Balancing charges
About £2m in four years
Across 2022 to 2025, spending above the budgets residents were given was recovered from them through balancing charges totalling roughly £2 million, with no vote on any of it.
Every figure above is calculated from the printed numbers in the signed service charge accounts and can be checked line by line. Percentages are never rounded up. The point is the scale of the overspends and the absence of any resident say, not any suggestion of impropriety.
The safety net is thinning, and we don't set it.
Phase 1's reserve fund fell about 19.6% during 2025, from £1.83m to £1.47m, after a year of heavy reserve spending. The published 2026 budget raises reserve collection by 43%, and still describes the fund as sufficient only for high-priority items.
Reserves are what protect us from a sudden bill for major works. How much we put in, and what it is spent on, is decided without a resident vote.
The accounts have never been independently audited.
The accountant's report on the service charge accounts states, every year, that the work is an agreed-upon procedures engagement only, and that they express no opinion and give no assurance. A leaseholder-controlled company could choose to commission a full, independent audit. Today, no one can.
This isn't about blame. It's about control.
There are real, legitimate costs in running an estate the size of Embassy Gardens, and some bills will be large whoever manages it. The problem is not that money is spent. It is that the people who pay have no say in the budgets, no vote on the contracts, no automatic right to see the invoices, and no ability to commission an audit.
Right to Manage changes that. It puts budget-setting under residents' scrutiny before the money is committed, opens the contracts to fair competition, gives the leaseholder-controlled company full sight of the accounts behind every charge, and lets residents choose, and replace, the managing agent. It does not guarantee a lower bill. It guarantees a say.
About two minutes. Free. Non-binding. Counts your flat towards your building's threshold.
Where these numbers come from.
All figures are drawn from the estate's signed service charge accounts for the years ended 31 December 2018 to 2025 (Phases 1 and 2) and from the published 2026 service charge budget. Percentages and multiples are calculated from the printed figures and checked against the accounts. Three things to keep in mind: 2026 is a budget rather than an outturn, and recent budgets have been overshot; the figures exclude balancing charges, so the cash actually demanded since 2023 runs higher than the budget lines suggest; and where a single year is quoted it is the most recent signed year available. We publish only what can be defended line by line against the accounts.
EGRA analysis of the published service charge budgets and accounts. Last updated 18 July 2026.
Our building. Our money. Our decisions.
If these numbers make the case to you, the most useful thing you can do is add your voice. It is free, takes two minutes and commits you to nothing.
About two minutes. Free. Non-binding. Counts your flat towards your building's threshold.