Homeowner Caroline Beddows bought a freehold house in Lancashire in 2016 specifically to avoid the leasehold fees and ground rent she had read about, only to discover months later that she still owed annual estate management charges. These "estate rent charges" are a little-known feature of many new-build freehold estates, where developers or management companies bill homeowners directly for the upkeep of communal areas such as grass verges, private roads and play parks that would once have been maintained by the local council.

The HomeOwners Alliance estimates at least one million newly built homes are now subject to such charges, which are written into the title deeds and typically cannot be challenged or taken over by residents themselves. In Caroline's case, the roughly £150 annual bill covers a small patch of grass and a few trees, and she says the solicitor recommended by the developer never warned her she would be liable. Her daughter Charlotte faces a starker version of the problem, having inherited a flat in Saffron Walden, Essex, that has attracted no buyer interest because of its £4,500 annual service charge, reflecting a wider trend of leasehold service charges reaching as much as £30,000 a year in extreme cases.