Bournville

[nipper]

I have lived in my house for nearly five years and it is built on land owned by Bournville (as in Cadburys chocolate). Bournville has established this community here in Telford, modelled on the one in Bournville, Birmingham.
As a result everyone who lives here has to pay a yearly service charge (currently about £300 a year) which contributes to:

our estate officer (litter picking, grass cutting, general tidying and security)
communal repairs and landscaping
communal lighting
hard surface maintenance (whatever that means i guess roads and courtyards)
and an integrated reception system which is basically the satellite receiver system for TV

We also had up until about a year ago a temporary sewage system just for my little development of forty houses, until the rest of the village was built. The thing is these services are all things that I rely on for my work as I am at home all day every day.

My question is can I claim on this payment as an allowable expense in the same way I can for council tax (which we also pay for) ? Or is this just a case of me accepting where I live and not trying to claw back every penny I can?

[samb]

I have no idea but I also pay "maintenance" for the building too as I am a leaseholder and I have never claimed anything for that but I guess if you find out that you can it would be applicable to anyone who pays maintenance so I would be interested to hear.

[rickysmiths]

I was never allowed to claim anything for my Service charges which paid for similar things to your charge when I lived in a flat.

[miffy]

You could always phone the tax office for advice - if they say yes get the name of the person you spoke to in case there's a query later

Miffy xx