FOI request (FOIR-784563295)

Legitimacy of service charges

Requested Mon 12 January 2026
Responded Wed 11 February 2026

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Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding. 

NOTICE OF REFUSAL

 

Please see below reasons for non disclosure of the the requested information. To obtain would require us to manually check each customer records, this would far exceed the time limit set out by the Information Commissioner therefore under S12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000 provides an exemption from the obligation to comply with a request for information if the estimated costs of complying with that request would exceed the prescribed appropriate limit.

 

We estimate that the costs of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit by a significant amount.

 

For this reason we feel unable to comply with this part of your request.

 

Housing Benefit (HB) is payable on both rent and eligible service charges.

 

"Service charges" means periodical payments for services, whether or not under the same agreement as that under which the dwelling is occupied, or whether or not such a charge is specified as separate from or separately identified within other payments made by the occupier in respect of the dwelling; and

 

"Services" means services performed or facilities (including the use of furniture) provided for, or rights made available to, the occupier of a dwelling.

 

Service charges that are ineligible for HB are set out in Schedule 1 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006.

 

When processing benefit claims, only the ineligible service charges (i.e. those listed in Schedule 1 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006) are entered separately on the system to ensure the gross rent is reduced accordingly. HB eligible service charges are not recorded separately on the benefits system as there is no requirement to do so.

 

To respond fully to this request, we would need to manually review each of approximately 3,000 HB claims to determine whether any eligible service charges are included within the rent, who the benefit is paid to, and whether the landlord is a Housing Association. Even if each claim could be reviewed in as little as five minutes, the total time required would far exceed the 18-hour limit set for FOI compliance.