General

HomeGround is a specialist asset manager for residential property portfolios across England and Wales that are owned by freeholder and landlord companies. HomeGround looks after these portfolios on behalf of major institutional UK investors, such as pension funds.

Please start by checking all the FAQs. If you need more help then please use the contact form. Make sure you have given us enough detail so we can understand your query. You'll be given a case number to quote in future discussions about your enquiry.

For the best experience we recommend that you always log in first, then you won't have to fill in as many basic details: Sign in or Register.

If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking here.

We usually respond in 3–5 working days. You will get an email that either answers your query or asks you to log back in to the HomeGround portal to see the answer.

HomeGround is a specialist asset manager for residential property portfolios across England and Wales that are owned by freeholder and landlord companies. HomeGround looks after these portfolios on behalf of major institutional UK investors, such as pension funds.

HomeGround is here to help you, as a customer, to manage your rights and responsibilities as a leaseholder or freeholder.  

On behalf of your landlord HomeGround: 

  • collects and administers ground rents and implements rent reviews
  • arranges building insurance
  • manages lease extensions, freehold purchases, landlord consents and title transfers.

No. HomeGround only collects ground rent and building insurance premiums.

Service charges are separate from your ground rent and are dealt with and collected by your building’s managing agent.

HomeGround is not involved with the maintenance or management of your building.

HomeGround is here to help you, as a customer, to manage your rights and responsibilities as a leaseholder or freeholder.  

On behalf of your landlord HomeGround: 

  • collects and administers ground rents and implements rent reviews
  • arranges building insurance
  • manages lease extensions, freehold purchases, landlord consents and title transfers.

(1) This summary, which briefly sets out your rights and obligations in relation to administration charges, must by law accompany a demand for administration charges. Unless a summary is sent to you with a demand, you may withhold the administration charge. The summary does not give a full interpretation of the law and if you are in any doubt about your rights and obligations you should seek independent advice.

(2) An administration charge is an amount which may be payable by you as part of or in addition to the rent directly or indirectly:

  • for or in connection with the grant of an approval under your lease, or an application for such approval
  • for or in connection with the provision of information or documents
  • in respect of your failure to make any payment due under your lease or
  • in connection with a breach of a covenant or condition of your lease.

If you are liable to pay an administration charge, it is payable only to the extent that the amount is reasonable.

(3) Any provision contained in a grant of a lease under the right to buy under the Housing Act 1985, which claims to allow the landlord to charge a sum for consent or approval, is void.

(4) You have the right to ask a First-tier Tribunal whether an administration charge is payable. You may make a request before or after you have paid the administration charge. If the tribunal determines the charge is payable, the tribunal may also determine:

  • who should pay the administration charge and who it should be paid to
  • the amount
  • the date it should be paid by and
  • how it should be paid.

However, you do not have this right where:

  • a matter has been agreed to or admitted by you
  • a matter has been, or is to be, referred to arbitration or has been determined by arbitration and you agreed to go to arbitration after the disagreement about the administration charge arose or
  • a matter has been decided by a court.

(5) You have the right to apply to a First-tier Tribunal for an order varying the lease on the grounds that any administration charge specified in the lease, or any formula specified in the lease for calculating an administration charge is unreasonable.

(6) Where you seek a determination or order from a First-tier Tribunal, you will have to pay an application fee and, where the matter proceeds to a hearing, a hearing fee, unless you qualify for a waiver or reduction. The total fees payable to the tribunal will not exceed £500, but making an application may incur additional costs, such as professional fees, which you may have to pay.

(7) A First-tier Tribunal has the power to award costs, not exceeding £500, against a party to any proceedings where:

  • it dismisses a matter because it is frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of process or
  • it considers that a party has acted frivolously, vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or unreasonably.

The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has similar powers when hearing an appeal against a decision of a First- tier Tribunal.

(8) Your lease may give your landlord a right of re-entry or forfeiture where you have failed to pay charges which are properly due under the lease. However, to exercise this right, the landlord must meet all the legal requirements and obtain a court order. A court order will only be granted if you have admitted you are liable to pay the amount or it is finally determined by a court, a tribunal or by arbitration that the amount is due. The court has a wide discretion in granting such an order and it will take into account all the circumstances of the case.

We may not have your correct contact details or preferences if:

  • your previous agent has not passed them on
  • you have rented out your property and not updated us about the change in your correspondence address
  • you have recently purchased your property and we have not been informed about the change in ownership, in which case please check with the solicitor or conveyancer who dealt with your purchase that a notice has been served on the freeholder about the sale.

You can check and update your correspondence address and method in your account on the HomeGround portal under the My Details option.

If you are already registered on the HomeGround portal but need help resetting your password, please click here.

To register on the HomeGround portal you will need your 12-digit customer reference number and your security key, which can be found in the welcome pack that was sent to you when we first acquired your property and on our invoices. If you need help with your security key and customer reference number, please complete an enquiry form.

To register, please click here.

The records passed on to HomeGround from your previous freeholder, after our client purchased the freehold of your property, show that you had not paid your ground rent for the periods shown on the invoice.

If you have paid this ground rent to your previous freeholder (or their agent), please send us documentation showing the payment, such as a bank statement or a receipt from the previous freeholder.

Once we receive documentation that proves payment, the arrears charges are marked as disputed on our system with ** while we try to obtain that payment from your previous freeholder.

We can experience delays in sorting out arrears and if you do receive a ground rent invoice for the next period, please ignore the charges marked ** as we do not expect you to pay them. Your total outstanding balance on your account will also exclude the charges in dispute.

Please contact us if you require additional information about an invoice for arrears.

No. HomeGround only collects ground rent and building insurance premiums.

Service charges are separate from your ground rent and are dealt with and collected by your building’s managing agent.

HomeGround is not involved with the maintenance or management of your building.

If you have already registered on the HomeGround portal

When you first registered on the HomeGround portal you received an email with your login details. Your username is the email address you used when you completed the registration process. For security reasons, we do not keep a copy of your password. If you have forgotten your password, please reset it here:

We will email you a link to reset your password – the link expires after 4 hours.

If you have not yet registered on the HomeGround portal

Registering is easy. You will need your 12-digit customer reference number and your security key, both of which can be found on a HomeGround invoice and on our welcome letter. To register your personal account on the HomeGround portal:

HomeGround is committed to providing a good standard of service to our leaseholders and resident owners and their solicitors, in fact, to anybody who needs to contact us. If we have not met the high standards we set for ourselves, then please let us know.

We commit to carefully reviewing what has happened, to giving you a full and transparent explanation, to learning from our mistakes, and to using your feedback to improve our procedures and staff training.

1) Our complaints procedure IS designed to deal with situations involving our service to you, for instance:

  • Failure to respond to communications and requests within a promised timescale
  • Inaccurate or unhelpful communication
  • If a member of our staff has been rude, dismissive or unprofessional with you
  • You believe you have been discriminated against or treated unfairly by us.

If you wish to make a complaint about a service issue, then please go to the section on how to make a complaint.

2) Our complaints procedure is NOT suitable for other, non-service issues, such as:

  • The level of the fees we charge for the functions we carry out on behalf of our clients
  • Ground rent disputes
  • Breaches of obligations in a lease or title document
  • Insurance.

If you wish to make a complaint about a financial or legal issue, then please do not use our complaints procedure but see Section 4 on independent regulation.

Making a complaint

Please address your complaint to the Customer Service Manager. You will need to supply:

  • your 12-digit customer reference number
  • the full property address and postcode of the original query
  • a summary of why you feel we have failed in our service delivery
  • a list of the dates of previous contact with HomeGround
  • copies of relevant correspondence that supports your concerns

You can send your complaint FAO Customer Services Manager by:

What happens next?

The Customer Service Manager will investigate the issues you have raised and may contact you for further information if necessary.

HomeGround commit to:

  • Acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 working days
  • Asking you for any additional information needed to fully investigate the issue
  • Providing you with a full response no later than 15 working days from the date we first receive your complaint – if we need longer we’ll tell you before the 15 working days are up
  • Clearly explaining the outcome we believe is appropriate to resolve your complaint
  • Acknowledging any mistakes HomeGround have made or any poor service we have delivered and to apologising
  • Confirming how we intend to avoid such errors in future
  • Offering any redress that may be appropriate.

If you are not satisfied with the resolution set out in our response letter, you have a further 15 working days to ask us to review the issue further. If we do not hear back from you within that time, we will consider the issue resolved and the complaint will be closed.

Complaints Stage 2

HomeGround recognise that after receiving our response you may consider that we have not taken into account some additional, relevant information, or that we have made an error in our review. For these reasons, and to ensure that we offer a robust procedure, we offer a second review stage.

Please address further correspondence to the Complaints Officer, clearly marked ‘Stage 2 Complaint’, together with any other material you want us to take into account, and send by:

The Complaints Officer will:

  • Acknowledge receipt of your Stage 2 complaint within 3 working days
  • Aim to provide you with a full response within 10 working days of your referral, and will let you know if additional time is required
  • Review our original response and resolution, together with any further representations or material you send us
  • Check the handling of your complaint and our response times from the original date of receipt
  • Confirm whether or not the original resolution of your complaint is being upheld and, if not, how we now intend to resolve it

If we do not hear back from you within 15 working days of our response to your Stage 2 complaint, we will consider the issue resolved and the complaint will be closed.

If you are still unhappy

While our intention is to resolve all complaints to the satisfaction of all parties, we recognise that in some cases this will not be possible.

If at any stage of the complaints process we feel that further referral or review is not appropriate we will send you a final viewpoint letter. At which point you can refer your complaint to the Property Ombudsman, even if fewer than eight weeks have elapsed since your original complaint was made.

Before approaching the ombudsman we strongly advise you to read their guidance on the types of complaint they investigate and what you should do before referring a complaint.

The Property Ombudsman

Homeground is a member of the government-approved redress scheme, The Property Ombudsman Service, or TPOS (the Ombudsman), to which unresolved complaints can be referred once you have exhausted our complaints procedure, or if at least eight weeks have passed since your original complaint was made and we have not dealt with it satisfactorily.

Full details, and an electronic contact form, are on www.tpos.co.uk

The Property Ombudsman, Milford House, 43–55 Milford Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 2BP

The Financial Conduct Authority

If your complaint relates to our insurance services, these will be dealt with under the requirements of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)To learn more about the redress scheme offered by the FCA, please visit www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/consumer-leaflet.htm 

If you would like a physical copy of the consumer leaflet, we’d be happy to send you one. 

Other authorities

You have the right to refer any complaint to a different body, such as a court. 

HomeGround Management Limited - 9 January 2019