How the statutory wording gets onto your documents

Every word of prescribed text LevyBoard emits is copied from the instrument. Not summarised, not modernised, not tidied. That sounds obvious and it is the single thing most likely to go wrong: a fluent, legally literate paraphrase of a prescribed passage is still the wrong text.

So the wording is stored as a fixture with a SHA-256 hash taken at the moment it was transcribed. Publishing a new rule-engine version re-hashes each stored passage against that value and refuses to publish if any has drifted. A test with a deliberately altered control proves the check can fail — a check that always passes proves nothing.

Legislation.gov.uk serves an instrument in two forms: as originally made, and as currently in force. The obvious URL is the first one, and for the prescribed summary of rights and obligations it is wrong.

The text as made refers to the leasehold valuation tribunal. That was replaced with the First-tier Tribunal on 1 July 2013. Building the demand template from the version as made would put thirteen-year-superseded prescribed wording on every demand this product ever issues — and it would pass a byte check, because it would be checked against the wrong source. LevyBoard reads the in-force text.

• Service Charges – Summary of tenants’ rights and obligations — The Service Charges (Summary of Rights and Obligations, and Transitional Provision) (England) Regulations 2007. Source, retrieved 2026-09-02T08:40:00Z.
• Section 20 consultation requirements — The Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003. Source, retrieved 2026-09-02T08:40:00Z.

When LevyBoard produces a demand or a notice, it records the exact bytes it produced, their SHA-256 hash, and the rule-engine version — which itself names the statutory text it was built from. That record cannot be edited or deleted afterwards, by your account or by our application: the database refuses the write, and it refuses it for our application's own service credentials too, not only for yours. The one change made to it is anonymisation — seven years after issue, or sooner if your organisation's records are erased — which removes who the document was addressed to and keeps the hash and the version.

The stored PDF sits behind that record rather than inside it. So every time a document is downloaded, LevyBoard re-hashes the stored file and compares it with the hash taken at issue. If the two ever disagree, the file is not served and the mismatch is raised — the immutable record, its hash and its calculation snapshot remain available. We do not claim the stored file is beyond reach; we claim any change to it is detected before anyone relies on it. (Files are deleted deliberately: seven years after issue, or sooner if your organisation's records are erased. The record and its hash survive both.)

The point of that is a question you may be asked years later: why does this demand say what it says? The answer is checkable rather than remembered.

Several judgements in this area belong to the director, because that is where the law puts them. LevyBoard shows the arithmetic and the wording, then asks:

• Whether works need a consultation. The screen shows the estimated cost, the largest single leaseholder share and the figure named in the regulations, quotes the provision, and records your decision. It never announces a verdict — a build-time check asserts that no code path emits one.
• Whether an agreement is a qualifying long-term agreement. Out of scope entirely; the templates cover Schedule 4 Part 2 only, and the consultation screen says so at the point of use rather than in a footnote.
• Who your landlord is. Asked, per development, never inferred from your company type. An RMC that owns the freehold is the landlord. A right-to-manage company took management over from a separate freeholder, and it is itself within the meaning of “landlord” for this purpose — so its own name and address must appear on a demand, and LevyBoard will not issue one without them. Whether the freeholder must additionally be named is not settled, so we print both: it is the cautious option and it cannot make a demand worse.
• What your lease provides. Whether a reserve fund is permitted, whether demands may be made on account, when liability attaches — all captured from you at setup, with nothing pre-selected. LevyBoard supplies no default for these, because a default would be the product asserting a lease term it has not read, and it refuses to issue while any of them is unanswered rather than guessing. The one exception is deliberate and runs the other way: interest on arrears starts switched off, so an unanswered lease can never produce a charge.

Some leases leave a share with the freeholder, so a cost centre totalling 97% is perfectly legitimate. LevyBoard says the figure is unusual and worth checking against your leases — and then saves exactly what you entered.

It never redistributes the difference. Forcing the flats' shares to add up to the full allocation would charge leaseholders for somebody else's share, at scale, on a document they are entitled to check. Where a cost centre is under 100%, the uncharged balance is shown on screen and on the demand.

Almost every judgement call in this product goes to a warning rather than a block, because a legitimate lease may be unusual and refusing legitimate work is its own harm. There is one exception.

LevyBoard refuses to issue a demand run when the landlord's name and address are not recorded. Section 47(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 makes the service charge “treated for all purposes as not being due” until that information is furnished. A demand missing them is not collectable, and issuing a batch of uncollectable demands to real leaseholders is worse than issuing none. So it refuses rather than warns. Section 48 is a separate duty with the same consequence — the landlord must give each leaseholder, by notice, an address in England and Wales for service — and LevyBoard produces that notice and records when each leaseholder was given it. Where your company is the landlord, it also refuses a demand run until every leaseholder has been given it. Where an RTM company or agent issues the demands, it does not refuse, because whether such a company can give the notice itself is not settled.

Where the landlord's address is outside England and Wales, an address in England or Wales for service is also required — and LevyBoard asks for it only in that case, because the requirement is conditional and inventing an unconditional one would be its own inaccuracy.

Section 20 templates cover Schedule 4 Part 2 only. Schedules 1, 2 and 3 and Schedule 4 Part 1 are not covered, and neither is the Welsh variant. Qualifying long-term agreements — which is what a block appointing contractors or ending an agent relationship most often trips — fall under Schedule 2 and are not covered.

Statutory year-end service charge accounts are not produced. What must be produced, in what form and certified by whom, is set by your lease, and no parameter set captures the required shape of a document. LevyBoard gives you clean, categorised, fund-designated records and an income and expenditure statement; your accountant prepares the accounts. See the question about accountants on the homepage.

Sections 54 to 57 of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 are not in force and have no commencement instrument. Section 56 would imply a term requiring annual written service charge accounts with a qualified accountant's report — but not into every lease: the inserted section 21D applies only where the relevant costs are also taken into account for “the tenants of three or more other dwellings”, which is a four-dwelling floor, and section 21D(6) lets regulations disapply or modify it. Section 55 would remove the withholding remedy that the summary of rights and obligations depends on. One commencement instrument would change both ends of this product at once, so the position is re-checked before each release.

Separately, the government has said it will prescribe the form and minimum content of service charge accounts, with twelve months' notice. Nothing is in force and no commencement date exists, so it changes nothing you do today.