advice on service charges

mitchelkitman

Problem was that the building society just added the charges to my mortgage without question or authorisation from myself. You correctly state that I was badly advised (indeed I was badly advised by all the 'professionals' in the whole process). The only guy who DID give good advice was one Peter Walker who advised me to hand the keys to the building society, and walk away (after he'd done all the legal work!) It worked, they wrote off the debt. He also gave some more good advice - Don't buy anything like an endowment (or other similar package) again. We subsequently bought (a freehold house!) at the bottom of the last recession, USING A REPAYMENT MORTGAGE, where we could pay extra if we wished (thus reducing interest) - upshot is that after 16 years we now don't even have a mortgage to pay! Power to the people! Do tread carefully when trusting a professional (they nearly always have a vested interest). Don't know where Peter Walker is now (hope it's South of France, Florida or similar, he deserves it.)

Fire_Fox wrote: »

If service charges are formally disputed then the arrears cannot be added to a leaseholders mortgage without the freeholder/ management company going to a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. If they were to repossess the flat, again, an LVT and a court order is required. It is not necessary to have expensive legal representation at an LVT or indeed at any stage of a dispute, you simply need to be willing to

I have been told by a 'reputable company' I would be subjected to legal action, to a "visit from the bailiffs" none of which have come to fruition as I have called their bluff and have a strong paper trail of complaints. Leaseholders have the right to view all sorts of documentation and to dispute charges but many do not go about it the right way. It sounds like you have either had very poor advice on how to go about challenging your service charges.