Property managment Charge for Information

fred7777

Can anyone help me with how to challenge this:

I am selling my leasehold flat. There is no property management company but the freehold is owned by a company which has ceased trading and is represented by a local solicitor. The buyers solicitor sent a form containing 21 questions about the "Property Management company" which the first solicitor must answer. All the answers will be "no" and they are demanding £150+"value" added tax for this, that;s over £4 a letter.
Is there any way to challenge the reasonableness of this fee. To add insult to injury it took us 3 ays of detective work & visiting various sites to even find out who to contact in the first place.:mad:

Fire_Fox

£150 plus VAT sounds pretty standard for leasehold queries relating to conveyancing. Run a search on the boards as this question has been posed many times, and read the LEASE website:
http://www.lease-advice.org/publications/

Premier_2

I think £150 should be the least of your worries.

If I were the interested buyer of your property and found that there was no managing agent and that the freeholder had ceased trading, I think I'd be going around the local EA's looking for an alternative property.

fred7777

Sorry I thought this was the money saving forum!

Why do we need a managing agent?

The flats are self contained, there are no indoor communal areas & the share of the costs of repairs are listed in the lease. In the six years of living here I have never felt the need for a managing agent. All the freeholder does is collect £20 a year ground rent (which is also specified in the 1965 lease). After paying £1200 a year on my wife's flat to Solitaire property management for grass cutting & well nothing else really I'd advise anyone looking for a flat to avoid managing agents at all costs.

Richard_Webster

If the lease doesn't provide for any service charges and you are responsible for the maintenace and insuarcne of your flat then it may well be that the most of the questions are irrelevant and your solicitor can go throught hem one by one and tell the buyer's solicitors that he is not answering them.

Unfortunately there may be one or two points that will still need to be answered. unless you haev a receipt for ground rent then you may still need written confirmation of this fact from the solicitor and he may charge for this, although your solicitors can certainly try saying that they think £150 is a bit steep for simply confirming receipt of ground rent.

I have a case at the moment where I am acting for someone buying a long leasehold house and the managing agents charged the seller's solicitors £120 for producing their leasehold pack which waffled on about all kinds of charges that were not applicable in our case and the only useful thing in it was confirmation that the annual ground rent of £2 had been paid!

A general tip for those selling a leasehold property where all the freeholder does is collect ground rent,is if you are thinking of selling send the freeholder or his agent a stamped addressed envelope for a receipt when sending ground rent and you could save some money later!