Everything you might reasonably ask.

It is the landlord's cost of shared services in a building or estate, allocated between tenants under their leases. Review points can include an inconsistent apportionment, void-unit costs passed to occupiers, costs outside an express lease scope, management work outside the service-charge role, or insurance remuneration that is not properly disclosed. Improvements, marketing, reserves and commission are conditional rather than automatically disallowed.

Yes. You can upload your statement, see the findings and the estimated overpayment, and walk away with no obligation and nothing to pay. The optional Evidence Pack is a separate fixed-price purchase.

The Evidence Pack costs £395 plus VAT if applicable. If it isn't useful to you, ask within 14 days and we refund it in full. Representation is not currently offered; when it is, it costs 25% of confirmed recovered value: the refund or credit plus one year of an agreed annual reduction. The pack’s net fee is credited up to the success fee; unused credit is not refundable.

We will say when the screen finds no quantified adjustment. That is not an all-clear: the lease, missing documents or later evidence can change the position. Evidence questions can remain even when no saving is quantified.

The answer depends on the lease, when the cause of action accrued, the relevant law, prior settlements and the accounts available. The checker caps its screening illustration at 6 years; that is not a promise of entitlement or legal limitation advice. Older-year figures remain provisional until reviewed.

Representation requires trained human approval before external action. The self-service Evidence Pack is produced automatically from eligible documents and is for you to verify and use. Buying it does not appoint Chargewise or include a professional human review.

The current RICS professional standard is the 2nd edition, effective from 31 December 2025. It includes mandatory requirements for RICS members and regulated firms and detailed best practice on transparency, allocation, insurance remuneration and year-end reporting. RICS and ICAEW also describe a transition for periods that began earlier, so the applicable edition and lease must be checked rather than assumed.

No. The product is designed for limited business-to-business commercial service-charge advisory work. Its appointment expressly excludes litigation, reserved legal activities, binding settlement, lease variation and third-party costs without separate approval. Where legal or regulated work is needed, you should instruct an appropriately authorised professional.

The free screening check can start with this year's demand, budget or year-end accounts. A case position cannot be approved from that alone: we will request the lease, apportionment material and supporting evidence needed for the specific review points.