Noble Court’s Accounts: Where the Money Went — and the Questions That Remain
For years, the service charge barely moved. The bills did. Now the figures tell a rather more complicated story.
There is something wonderfully reassuring about a service charge that does not increase.
From at least 2017 until June 2026, Noble Court’s ordinary service-charge income remained at £28,800 a year — equivalent to £60 per month across 40 flats. No annual increases. No inflationary creep. No unpleasant surprise arriving with the morning post.
Unfortunately, buildings do not share this enthusiasm for price freezes.
Contractors increase their prices. Electricity costs change. Management fees rise. Cleaning costs more. Grounds need maintaining. Things break. And, every so often, a building presents its owners with the irritating reminder that postponing expenditure is not quite the same thing as eliminating it.
That is where Noble Court’s accounts become interesting.
The £28,800 that stood still
The accounts available for 2021 to 2025 show ordinary service-charge income remaining resolutely fixed at £28,800 every year.
Yet expenditure did not remain fixed.
In 2021, total expenditure was £27,109.17. In 2022 it was £27,836.20. In 2023 it was £26,988.36. By 2024 it had risen to £31,091.70.
Then came 2025.
Total expenditure reached £65,643.64, although that figure includes the exceptional £30,444 Section 20 redecoration works. Remove those works and ordinary expenditure was still approximately £35,200.
In other words, while ordinary income remained at £28,800, underlying expenditure had moved considerably beyond it.
Keeping the service charge down may have looked attractive.
The accounts suggest the estate could no longer afford the luxury.
The cash cushion disappears
Perhaps the most striking number in the accounts is not expenditure at all.
It is cash.
At the end of 2024, the accounts recorded £21,414.85 in the bank.
At the end of 2025?
£1,814.34.
That is a reduction of approximately £19,600 in twelve months — more than 91%.
The accumulated surplus tells a similar story. It stood at £21,553.23 at the end of 2023, fell to £19,615.05 in 2024, and then to just £5,461.09 in 2025.
That does not, by itself, establish anything improper. Money collected for managing a building is supposed to be spent when legitimate expenditure arises.
But it does demonstrate something important:
Noble Court’s financial cushion became dramatically thinner.
And then there is the reserve
Against all this sits one particularly curious figure.
£2,050.96.
That is the reserve fund shown in 2021.
It is also the reserve shown in 2022.
And 2023.
And 2024.
And 2025.
Five years. Exactly the same figure.
That deserves an explanation, particularly because Noble Court’s lease expressly contemplates a reserve based upon the amount estimated by the Management Company to be reasonably required.
The question is therefore not simply why the reserve was £2,050.96.
It is how the required reserve was assessed each year, what future expenditure was considered, and why precisely the same amount remained appropriate year after year.
£22,500 in. £30,444 out.
The 2025 redecoration produces another number worthy of attention.
The accounts record £22,500 in Section 20 redecoration demands.
They also record £30,444 in Section 20 redecoration expenditure.
That leaves an apparent difference of:
£7,944.
There may be an entirely straightforward accounting explanation. But members should be told what it is.
Was the difference funded from accumulated service-charge monies? Were there variations to the original works? Did the final contract price exceed the amount demanded? Was further money due but not yet demanded?
Those are accounting questions, not accusations.
And £7,944 is quite sufficient to justify asking them.
Repairs: another number worth watching
General Repairs provide another revealing trend.
They cost £2,504.50 in 2021, £4,091.48 in 2022, £3,604.60 in 2023 and £3,471.60 in 2024.
In 2025 they reached £8,775.89.
Again, increased expenditure does not mean unnecessary expenditure. Quite the opposite: repairs have to be done.
But an increase of that magnitude deserves a transaction-by-transaction explanation.
Particularly because there remains work around Noble Court requiring attention: remedial and tidying work to the grounds, a paving slab protruding by approximately one inch and presenting a trip hazard, the continuing pigeon-guano problem, and tiles coming away from part of the building leaving a hole in the fascia.
Residents might reasonably ask a very simple question:
What exactly did £8,775.89 of General Repairs buy in 2025?
Management has become more expensive too
The management fee has followed a rather different trajectory from the service charge.
In 2024 it was £11,029.32.
In 2025 it increased to £11,360.16 — equivalent to £946.68 every month.
That means the management fee alone represented approximately 39% of the £28,800 ordinary service-charge income collected that year.
There is nothing inherently wrong with paying properly for professional management.
But £11,360 a year should buy something more valuable than invoice processing.
It should buy active estate management: inspections that identify defects, maintenance that is planned rather than perpetually deferred, hazards that are recorded and addressed, contractors who are monitored, budgets that anticipate expenditure and directors who receive sufficiently clear information to make informed decisions.
The question is not merely “What does the managing agent cost?”
It is “What are we receiving for the money?”
Then came the £65 service charge
In July 2026, after years without an increase, the monthly charge finally rose from £60 to £65 per flat.
Even that deserves some perspective.
At £65 per month across 40 flats, a complete twelve-month period would generate:
£31,200.
Yet ordinary expenditure in 2025, excluding the exceptional £30,444 redecoration, was approximately £35,200.
If expenditure remained around that level, £65 per month would still leave an annual funding gap of approximately £4,000.
And because the increase only began in July, its effect on 2026 is smaller still. Six months at £60 followed by six months at £65 produces approximately £30,000 of ordinary service-charge demands for the year.
So perhaps the surprising thing about the 2026 increase isn’t that the service charge went up.
It is that it went up by only £5.
Would £70 have been more realistic?
At £70 per month, annual income across 40 flats would be £33,600.
That still would not be extravagant. Indeed, measured against 2025’s underlying expenditure, it would remain fairly tight.
But it would provide another £2,400 per year compared with £65.
That money could contribute towards rebuilding reserves, dealing with known minor defects and reducing the likelihood that the next significant piece of work arrives accompanied by another sudden demand.
There is a difference between keeping service charges reasonable and keeping them artificially low.
The first is good management.
The second can simply send today’s bill to tomorrow.
The question the accounts cannot answer
None of these figures proves mismanagement.
But accounts are not merely historic documents to be filed away once a year. Properly read, they tell directors and members where the estate has been — and give warning about where it may be heading.
For Noble Court, the questions are now fairly straightforward.
How was the £65 charge calculated? Why was ordinary income held at £28,800 for so many years? What reserve did the directors consider Noble Court actually required? How was the £7,944 difference on the redecoration funded? What sits behind the £8,775.89 General Repairs figure? And, with known maintenance still outstanding, what is the financial plan for dealing with it?
The service charge does not need to be the cheapest possible.
It needs to be sufficient, properly calculated, transparently accounted for and intelligently spent.
After years at £60, £65 may look like an increase.
The accounts suggest it may simply have been too little, too late
A Note on the £65 Decision
The increase from £60 to £65 per month was put to a vote of members. That democratic element is important—but so is the information on which a financial decision is made.
Members were not presented at the AGM with a full financial plan setting out projected expenditure, anticipated maintenance, an appropriate reserve contribution and the longer-term funding requirements of the estate. In those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that most members favoured the lower figure. Given a choice between paying more and paying less, without a compelling financial case explaining why more may be necessary, the cheaper option has an obvious attraction.
I was the only member who voted for a higher service charge. That was not because I wanted residents to pay more for the sake of it. It was because I believed the figures justified greater provision for the estate.
Service charges should not ultimately be a popularity contest over who can produce the smallest number. Members should first be shown what the estate is expected to cost, what work needs doing, what reserve is reasonably required and what contribution is necessary to fund it. They can then make an informed decision about the consequences of the available options.
The objective should not be the lowest possible service charge. It should be the lowest service charge that can properly fund a well-maintained and financially resilient Noble Court.
The service charge accounts are available to download by clicking HERE