Broken lift in flats - no one wants to pay to fix it

mlz1413

IMO if you buy a flat you pay an equal share for all the services with all the other flats as you decided to buy within that development.

But I've come across arguments that 1 beds don't pay as much as 2 beds and that ground floors pay less for cleaning and nothing for lifts. Also a ground floor flat wanted nothing to do with charges for roof repairs as it didn't affect them.

I think the lease should clearly state how the charges will be split out from day of building them and then anyone buying a flat knows how they will be charged.

As princeofpounds says some owners believe the charges are voluntary which must make the managements job difficult!

zzzLazyDaisy

When I lived in a flat the automatic security gates to the car park were forever breaking down, and stood open most of the time. Eventually the maintenance people tole the management company that they were beyond repair.

So the Management Company wrote to every flat owner (there were over 100 allocated spaces in the car park) and demanded a contribution of £250 each to replace the gates :eek:

When I wrote back and asked for a breakdown of the figures and how they arrived at that amount, I got no response.

The gates never were repaired/replaced as too many people refused to contribute (this £250 was over and above the monthly maintenance fee which went from £30 a month when I moved in, to £56 a month when I moved out a year later)

FoxtonsRIP

mlz1413 wrote: »

But I've come across arguments that 1 beds don't pay as much as 2 beds and that ground floors pay less for cleaning and nothing for lifts. Also a ground floor flat wanted nothing to do with charges for roof repairs as it didn't affect them.
!

But surely if you have a one-bedroom flat and a 3-bedroom flat on the same floor of a development then you'd pay a much smaller service charge on the one-bedroom flat?

mlz1413

what if you have a couple and baby in a 1 bed and a single person in the 3 bed?

And it is precisely this argument why I think the split should be set in stone when you buy and should remain for the life of the building, because if every time a flat is sold someone wants to re-negociate then it would make the repair costs unworkable.