What is a Section 21B summary of rights and obligations?
A Section 21B summary is a prescribed statement of your rights and obligations that must accompany every service charge demand under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. If a demand arrives without it, you may lawfully withhold payment of that service charge until the summary is provided. The sum itself remains due, but the lease's provisions on non-payment (such as interest or forfeiture) do not bite while you are entitled to withhold.
Section 21B was inserted into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. Its purpose is simple: no leaseholder should be asked to pay a service charge without also being told, in a standard form, what their rights are — the right to challenge charges, to inspect documents, and to apply to the tribunal.
What the summary must contain
The content and form of the summary are set by regulations, not left to the landlord. That means a landlord cannot rewrite it, water it down, or replace it with its own wording. The prescribed summary explains, among other things, that service charges must be reasonable, that you can ask to inspect the supporting documents, and that you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a determination.
Why this matters
Section 21B is one of several rules that go to whether a demand is even valid in the first place — before you get anywhere near arguing about whether the underlying costs are reasonable. A demand that lacks the prescribed Section 21B summary can be withheld until it is supplied; a demand that omits the landlord's name and address falls foul of a separate rule (Sections 47–48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987), under which the sum is not treated as due until the information is given. Raising that at the outset can pause payment and put you in a stronger position.
The same logic runs through the leasehold regime: the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 attaches an equivalent prescribed-summary requirement to administration charges, with a matching right to withhold if it is missing.
What to do if the summary is missing
If your demand has no Section 21B summary, you can write to the landlord or managing agent stating that you are withholding payment because the demand does not comply with Section 21B, and asking them to reissue it with the prescribed summary. Keep the correspondence — it evidences that you did not simply refuse to pay, but exercised a statutory right. When the compliant demand arrives, the clock effectively restarts.
How this shows up in your service charges
Missing or defective statutory summaries are surprisingly common — and they hand you a lawful reason to pause payment. Our free AI audit checks your demand against the Section 21B requirement and the other validity rules, so you know immediately whether it is effective. Learn how to read a demand line by line in our demand guide.
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