London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is under pressure to cap service charges on leasehold properties.

A committee of the London Assembly – chaired by a Green Party representative who has been fiercely critical of the Mayor’s policies on housing, including rent caps – has now issued a report called Worry and stress – life as a leaseholder in London.

It says that to help Londoners, Mayor Khan should “commit to capping service charges for new shared-ownership homes and include ‘designing down service charges’ as part of his updated London Plan, due to be published next year.”

It also urges Khan to improve transparency in leasehold service charges in London by updating the Leasehold Guide for Londoners and the Service Charge Charter.

It goes on to demand that the government legislate to give social renters the same rights as leaseholders in terms of access to full service-charge statements and invoices.

And it wants developers to be required to submit to their local authorities steps they have taken to ensure maximum lifespan of building components and maximise whole-life value for money for leaseholders.

Meanwhile today in Parliament, the all-party Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee will hold a one-off evidence session examining property management companies, looking at how the sector is responding to concerns around excessive service charges, poor communication, and unresolved maintenance problems.

MPs will question witnesses including from the Home Owners Rights Network (HorNet), Lord Best – the former chair of the Regulation of Property Agents Working Group – and also from the Competition and Markets Agency (CMA).