51 minutes ago
1
Heather Jackson bought her apartment more than 20 years ago and said the increase in service charges had left her feeling stressed.
"That works out at £365 per month, which when you're a pensioner is a lot of money to be paying extra," she said.
Leaseholders in England, Scotland and Wales can challenge service charges through an independent tribunal.
Anderson and other residents are calling for a change in the law to allow leaseholders to "challenge fees that are seemingly unreasonable" in Northern Ireland.
"We know when you buy an apartment, you have to pay towards communal areas," she said.
"What we want is to know that we are paying a fair and reasonable amount, and here we have nowhere we can challenge this."
Lisburn Square No 2 said it "inherited all legal leasehold arrangements that exist between the landlord and leaseholders, to which both parties are bound" when it purchased the development.
"This legal document details the operation of the service charge and the covenants of both parties.
"Every leaseholder is required to confirm they have received their own independent legal advice prior to entering into the legal agreement.
"All service charge expenditure is audited by a firm of chartered certified accountants. A summary document detailing the residential expenditure is provided to each leaseholder by the managing agent."
The BBC contacted the managing agent, Ambit CRE, which said the landlord would "be responding directly on the matter".
In October 2025, Finance Minister John O'Dowd announced plans to reform how the management of shared property was regulated, external in Northern Ireland.
O'Dowd said as Northern Ireland's "housing landscape evolves, we must ensure that residents living in apartments and other shared developments are protected by clear, fair, and effective regulation".
A report produced by his department set out a number of policy options for future reform, including the introduction of a registration scheme for managing agents and more fundamental reform of land law.
The scoping study said assembly members had given examples of constituents "who have experienced significant unexplained increases in service charges that were crippling in their effect".
Lagan Valley assembly member David Honeyford raised the residents' concerns with the minister in the assembly earlier this year.
He said people who live in his constituency were "being held to ransom" and called for stronger oversight.
"Our legislation hasn't kept up to date with the change in how people live today," he said.
"People need to understand what they're paying for, they need to understand why they're paying for it and they need the transparency and to be able to appeal that and have a voice in that if they disagree."
