HELP! advice about unfair council charges

BitterAndTwisted

In the LA-owned development I live in they have just recently circulated a consultancy document about replacement windows on on our estate and owner-occupiers were asked whether they wanted to be included in the tender or not to take advantage of said economies of scale, so it might not be a foregone conclusion that you will have to pay for new windows if you don't require them.

blckbrd

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

In the LA-owned development I live in they have just recently circulated a consultancy document about replacement windows on on our estate and owner-occupiers were asked whether they wanted to be included in the tender or not to take advantage of said economies of scale, so it might not be a foregone conclusion that you will have to pay for new windows if you don't require them.

That's a refreshing departure from the norm! Have other estates been given the same consideration do you know?

Makes me wonder what the motivation behind that decision is. Jaded me wonders whether the LA has leased the block (and having 'forgotten' :rolleyes: sold the properties as the freeholder under the RTB) and have issues with the extent/cost of a DoV from the freeholder. Interesting...

bunglesabout

Hi all
once again, thanks for all the advice.
I am fairly confident that I will have to pay the fee the council has asked for, but will check out the 'Lease' website as well and take another long look at my lease agreement.

Bitterandtwisted, I wasn't given a choice regarding whether the windows could be replaced, the letter I received just stated that I could send in questions (which I did) but that the work was deemed as 'required' and therefore I was being billed accordingly.

Firefox, I'm not quite sure how the percentage that I am being asked to pay is worked out, but out of the 10 properties in the two blocks, I think there is only me and one other leaseholder in the group. All the other properties belong to the council or an housing association. So again, I'm not sure if this is a good thing for me, or bad.

The cost I have been given is only an estimate and may go up or down (fairly unlikely) and I know that I have been quite lucky in the 4 years I have owned my flat, that I have not had larger costs, so overall I cannot complain.
I just wish I had known about this site when I first considered buying my home, because I would have probably had a lot more questions for my solicitor.

Anyway, I am grateful for all your input and advice, even if it is not the news I wanted to hear.:o

Many thanks

Bungle

BitterAndTwisted

blckbrd wrote: »

That's a refreshing departure from the norm! Have other estates been given the same consideration do you know?

Unfortunately I am not in a position to know. The only info I can give you is that this is a very desirable development for the borough: low-rise and brick-built and consequently has a high percentage of owner-occupiers plus we have an extremely active and effective tenants and residents association . People are fighting tooth-and-nail to get moved to this estate and quite rightly so. We are not strictly LA tenants any longer: we were hived off to a totally LA-owned ALMO some time ago, per Labour policy.

blckbrd

Cheers BitterandTwisted I used to work for an ALMO . You're still LA owned btw it's just they're keeping you at arm's length .

I'm glad to hear that people-power hasn't had its day :j