Ridiculous Service / Maintenance Charge Bill

Henry_Hoover_2

The leaseholders have a right to take over the management of the block. You'll need to get nearly all the other leaseholders on board, but they presumably have all had the same bill.

Although we bought the apartment in Dec, we only moved in a few weeks ago. i don't feel settled enough yet to rock the boat!

Amongst many other things it came to a head when they were all charged £1000 each to pay for communal windows the company hadnt actually changed. Apparently the company just hoped they wouldnt realise the windows were the same as the old ones and would just pay it.

That is terrible! Good job they noticed they hasn't been replaced, some people (Such as BTL's) would just assume it was correct and pay it!


There was a piece on Watchdog last night about management companies, and how the fail to complete maintenance work. I may have to get in touch with them.

QTPie

socrates wrote: »

Service charges are paid by the LL not by the tenants. If it is not paid they will pursue the LL/Owner not the tenant - thus the tenant has no legal commitment to pay.

A LL may decide to include it in the rent but that is between the two parties.

Oooops, sorry, I didn't make myself clear...

I meant that "whilst we owned it" we had to pay the management/service charges EVEN THOUGH it was Freehold (i.e. that not all Freehold properties escape that type of charge).

I didn't mean that we are still liable for the charges once we have sold (and rent it back). I will look forward to not having to pay it (even though ours is not huge)

Ooooops!

QT

ray123

Here is a revelant article from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jan/31/shared-equity-broken-dreams

Here is the e-mail address of the writer:
[EMAIL="m.brignall@guardian.co.uk"]m.brignall@guardian.co.uk[/EMAIL]

As mentioned above, you must pursue any course of action with the other residents. You might get lucky and discover that some of your neighbours have specialist qualifications regarding law, etc?

Doozergirl

Henry_Hoover wrote: »

Although we bought the apartment in Dec, we only moved in a few weeks ago. i don't feel settled enough yet to rock the boat!

There is very little boat rocking involved. Once you have a breakdown you can decide whether it's worth it.

If you want me to spoil the surprise for you, once you've received it you'll be wondering even more why on earth you're paying that much.

A few chats just knocking on doors - have you got your bill? They will probably then go into one themselves about how expensive it is. Do a bit of a straw pole, see whether it might be worth taking the right to manage yourselves and then broach the subject again.

It's very simple to do, there is no confrontation with the existing agents. We'd done it within months of buying a property when a proposal working out at 2500 a window arrived on the doorstep. Everyone was aggreived and immediately said yes to taking the Right to Manage.

I do not see the point of wrangling endlessly with rip off agents. Sack them.

Henry_Hoover_2

:j Some good news!

Received a letter from the management company yesterday, with a revised bill for £500 for 6 months, which makes the service charge £1000 a year.

They apologies in the letter, apparently they had incorrectly entered the building insurance cost into the system, which made the 6 monthly charge very high.

Panic over!

We are still, however, getting together and putting a case forward for self-management.

Thanks for all the advice!

lonestar1

I wonder if they have 'corected' this error for the others in the block ?

Entertainer

I know a guy who has fired two management companies he didn't like on behalf of the other leaseholders.:beer:

Try landlordzone for info about right to manage.