'Our estate pays £9,000 a year for grass to be cut'

"We feel fleeced. I feel as if I pay a second council tax to live where I am."

This is how Karen Stokes describes paying management company FirstPort to maintain land surrounding a small balancing pond near her home in Wigston, Leicestershire.

The private firm is responsible for cutting grass at the pond, designed to prevent flooding, and maintaining the bordering fence.

This year's bill for the whole estate was £9,031 - £75 per household - and included contributions towards terrorism insurance.

Eight years ago, Karen and Tony bought their new-build home at Waterside Gardens freehold, which means they own the property and the land it is built on.

The couple did not receive a bill for the first two years, but, when they did, they say FirstPort demanded a fee of £117.23 per household.

"But they hadn't even been on site and done any work at the pond," Karen says.

Outraged by the increase, the 65-year-old leafletted all houses on the estate and challenged the bill, eventually negotiating the lower fee for all 120 households.

"We pay £9,000 a year to have the grass cut twice a year, which is an awful lot of money," Karen says.

A breakdown of this year's bill - seen by the BBC - shows only £1,158 of the total figure went towards maintenance costs.

The majority of the bill was for management fees - £6,085 - and a small proportion - £14 - was for terrorism insurance.

"It's a real hotbed of terrorism in South Wigston, it really is," jokes Karen.

FirstPort told the BBC it was "common practice" to charge for terrorism insurance.

A spokesperson claims it is "an important consideration when placing insurance across a managed development", even if the likelihood of terrorism "may seem remote".

But Sebastian O'Kelly, director of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership charity, said: "I can't see any reason why there would be terrorism insurance on this pond, except to make money for the managing company who placed the contract."

Karen says she now spends weeks negotiating the charges on behalf of everyone on the estate and is already preparing for the next bill.

"I got a part-time job I never wanted," she says.

Separately, Pete Murray, a former parish councillor, set up a committee to help residents living on an estate managed by FirstPort in Fernwood, near Newark, Nottinghamshire, after he was repeatedly contacted by neighbours struggling to deal with the firm.

"We would go through any issues they had, and then we would contact FirstPort to try and resolve these issues," he says.

Pete says FirstPort eventually stopped engaging with his committee and he has since stepped back from helping residents.

"People were ringing me at home, knocking my front door, sending me text messages, phoning me," he says.

"I was physically drained. Not sleeping at night, worrying about it all the time."

But it is not just maintenance fees, the company also charges anyone who sells a home on an estate it manages - as Pete found out himself in 2021.

"To sell my home, I had to pay FirstPort over £2,000 in fees," says the 59-year-old.

The fees cover the cost of providing evidence of the managed areas and insurance, which need to be sent to the buyers' solicitor.

"We had no choice, we were already committed," Pete says.

"We sold our house and we had to go."

More than 30 MPs wrote to the managing director of FirstPort earlier in November to share concerns after receiving complaints from constituents.

When asked about the fees it charges homeowners who live on the estates in Wigston and Fernwood, a spokesperson for FirstPort told the BBC: "Service charges have risen across our entire industry.

"Our fees are reviewed regularly to ensure that they are reasonable.

"We take our responsibilities very seriously... we work hard to meet the high standards our customers rightly expect."

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: "We are committed to bring the injustice of 'fleecehold' private estates and unfair costs to an end.

"Next year we will consult on the best way to achieve this and we will include options to reduce the prevalence of private management of these estates - which are the root cause of the problems faced by homeowners."

The private estates model is becoming increasingly common as strapped-for-cash local authorities, that would in the past have taken on public areas, are seeking ways to avoid extra costs.

Instead of the council paying for upkeep of things like grass cutting, car parks and lighting, it is outsourced to a private company like FirstPort.

About 1.7 million homes are thought to be managed under the private estates model.

Eighty per cent of new homes sold by Britain's eleven biggest builders are now subject to estate management charges.

A report by the government's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) accused companies of not allowing homeowners to switch providers, giving "inadequate information upfront", delivering "shoddy work" and adding "unclear management charges".

Affected residents have dubbed the model "fleecehold".

Additional reporting by Laura Hammond

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