Running a Home
Service charges, reserve funds and where the money goes
A service charge is a budget you contribute to and rarely control. Reading the accounts tells you which kind of building you are…
Running a Home
Maintenance, service charges, bills and the cost of ownership after completion.
20 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
Running a Home
The running costs that start the day you complete
Ownership costs are continuous and lumpy. Households that plan for the lumps experience them as scheduled rather than as crises.
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Running a Home
Rebuild cost is not market value
Buildings insurance is priced on the cost of reconstruction, and getting that number wrong quietly reduces every claim you make.
Running a Home
The property taxes that continue after you move in
Purchase taxes get all the attention, and the recurring ones are the ones you pay every year for as long as you own.
Running a Home
A year of home maintenance in the order it should happen
Most household repairs are seasonal in origin, and doing the right tasks in the right months prevents most of them.
Running a Home
Where water actually gets into a building
Almost every expensive building repair begins as water arriving somewhere it was not meant to, usually at a junction.
Running a Home
Trees, drains and the liabilities you share with neighbours
Some of the most expensive things attached to a home are jointly owned, jointly caused or entirely on someone else land.
Running a Home
Energy ratings measure the building, not your bills
An energy assessment is a standardised model of a property, and the number it produces answers a narrower question than most buyers…
Running a Home
Replacing a heating system before it replaces itself
A heating system that fails in winter is replaced at the worst price, on the worst timescale, with the least choice.
Running a Home
Illiquidity is a running cost of owning property
A home cannot be sold quickly at a known price, and that fact has consequences that never appear in any cost calculation.
Running a Home
The house file, and why it pays you back at sale
Everything a future buyer conveyancer will ask for is easier to keep than to reconstruct, and its absence costs weeks.
Running a Home
What a home costs while nobody is living in it
An empty property still incurs taxes, insurance, maintenance and deterioration, and several of those change once it is unoccupied.