Lewis bought his flat from a shared-ownership scheme run by a housing association - but rising service charges mean he's now trapped in a home he cannot afford. #london

Effective regulation or legislation is needed: At the moment there appears to be nothing to stop spiraling service charges.

@simon170528 A f..king disgrace. Govt Housing Associations and Councils luring young couples into debt through massive service overcharging under the guise of affordable housing. Resulting in depression and being imprisoned in something no-one will buy. It's scandalous, immoral and rapacious.

Please be journalists and find out/explain what has happened to the service charge bill - publish last years accounts and the budget this year's bills are based on and explain what exactly has caused the increase. Just saying the charge has gone up provides no useful information.

See also @networkhomesuk who put ours up from £70pm to £210pm plus rent on top. And still failing to fix corridors full of mould and mushrooms growing @MW_Sovereign

@HousingOmbuds @luhc @michaelgove - are we learning yet? Are we waking up? @SHAC_Action @FreeLeasehlders #HousingCrisis

Leasehold is the problem and a scandal is still in existence - it's been banned in the rest of the world. Horrible system

Time for HAs to address these increasing service charges for shared owners

SHARED OWNERSHIP IS BIGGEST SCAM SINCE STATIC CARAVANS + TIMESHARES!

Shared ownership is a con

From experience, the HAs do no due diligence or supervision of their subcontractors. Over the years, I challenged invoices passed on as service charges some for work which was never done, done badly or were blatantly fraudulent. I got large refunds but took a lot of work.