Managing agent threaten to court

Fire_Fox

When does your 2009 year run from and to: January to December 2009 or April 2009 to March 2010? Presumably the invoices for 2009 financial year are estimates? AFAIK you can not formally dispute the reasonableness of estimates, that is why you have provision in your lease for any overpayment to be refunded. My understanding of formal disputes is you dispute the service and hence the charges relating to that service(s).

If I were in your shoes I'd be saying something like

"Dear Mr. Waste of Space,

Thank you for your letter dated xxx. As you are aware our service charge account is currently in dispute, please refer to our earlier communication

. We are disappointed to note that your company has failed to respond in full to any of our e-mails. Since our last contact I have sought the guidance of the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE). We are advised that the current dispute should not be dealt with by the county court but at a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, and we confirm we are willing for the case to be heard there. We would therefore like to formalise our earlier requests for a summary of the service charge account for financial year 2008/2009. We understand that, under section 21 of the Landlord-Tenant Act 1985, this must be supplied within one month. Please also forward copies of the buildings insurance certificates for the current and previous financial years, which we understand must be supplied within twenty one days of a request. The balance on our service charge account will be settled as soon as you have prepared an accurate statement of our payments to date, and carried forward the positive balance as provided for in section xxx of our long lease. As a gesture of goodwill we are prepared to make an interim payment of £500 towards the 2009/2010 invoices, please find cheque enclosed. Yours sincerely Stesshead" Not my best effort, I usually spend more time finding ways to say "f**k you, I know more about the law than you do" in very flowery language.

You do not want to go to court I don't think you will be able to get your legal fees back, this would need to be provided for in your lease. The county court is there for making bad debtors pay up, so please get that out of your head. You can easily head this off and I would strongly recommend you do so.

Stesshead

Many thanks for drafting the letter for me:) They will take me more seriously when I quote the clause. I think they previously just deleting my emails.

The financial year is from Apr 09 to Mar 10 which is based on the same estimate as the previous year. If I can not dispute the bill base on the unreasonableness of it, the best bet is follow your advice to contra the bill with credit balance.

I am now reading the LEASE website, wealth of information there:j I will have a good read.

About the building insurance, now 21 days is gone from my first request (unfortunately by email), I technically can report them to council. But I will not tell them that as yet;)

DVardysShadow

Fire_Fox wrote: »

You do not want to go to court I don't think you will be able to get your legal fees back, this would need to be provided for in your lease. The county court is there for making bad debtors pay up, so please get that out of your head. You can easily head this off and I would strongly recommend you do so.

Agree if LVT is available. But not wanting it to go to court is no more than an aspiration. You need to get your ducks in line to defend, especially as court has now been stated.

Fire_Fox

Stesshead: please send your letter recorded delivery, keep a copy and keep the receipt. The 21 days has NOT elapsed as you have never asked in writing before.

DVardyShadow: Court has been threatened it is far from being a given: LVT is available the minute this becomes a formal dispute. The management company have given the option of "pay up or go to court", Stresshead is countering with "resolve this amicably or go to an LVT". By paying £500 now we remove the court case option; by formally requesting documentation we make the LVT option less of a one horse race.

DVardysShadow

Fire_Fox wrote: »

DVardyShadow: Court has been threatened it is far from being a given: LVT is available the minute this becomes a formal dispute. The management company have given the option of "pay up or go to court", Stresshead is countering with "resolve this amicably or go to an LVT". By paying £500 now we remove the court case option; by formally requesting documentation we make the LVT option less of a one horse race.

It's not getting through to you is it? The argument is that the matter should be made defensible. You hope it doesn't go to court, but you don't put your money on that horse.

BitterAndTwisted

Stesshead wrote: »

Thanks for explaining this to me. It takes the managing agent 6 months to get the accounts audited, so I kinda get the idea they are not organized at finance side of the things.

They may not be but in mitigation it generally takes a few months to pay suppliers and ensure that no bills have slipped through the net which relate to the s/charge period. This is especially important for utility bills, suppliers on monthly or quarterly contracts and the like. I used to spend a fair amount of time in my last job chasing suppliers for copy invoices and then wielding a big stick to get them authorised by the surveyors and then pay them. It's not until the bills are actually paid that they appear on the reports which the S/C accountant then analyses. Then the draft s/c accounts go to the surveyor who puts them on the bottom of the pile and when they're rediscovered they spend aeons fart-arsing around switching expenses from category to category in order to not be over-budget anywhere compared to the budget. THEN they get audited which if they're not complex could take a few hours. Then you get your balancing s/c demand or credit

Stesshead

guys, thanks a lot for all your advice. I have finally done the letter:j
and will send it via my faithful carrier pigeon Donald in the morning;)

I will report back with any update! Thanks again

Fire_Fox

I think it's not getting through to you, DVardy! The only way the case that can be taken to court is if there are service charge arrears. I advised yesterday that the current arrears must be settled, and the refund for the previous financial year argued separately. You are all talking like court is a done deal when it is a threat!

If none or part of the arrears are cleared then I would agree that you can only hope the case doesn't go to court. If it does go to court then either the court deems the case to be within it's jurisdiction (simple arrears) in which case you pretty much have no defence OR the court accepts there is a dispute (complex arrears) and refers on to an LVT.

You can't allow the case go to court and then argue the case for a dispute that is not how the system works. Several leaseholders tried that in my parents block and, in every case, all the arrears plus costs got lodged against their mortgage. My father sat on the board of the RTM company at the time so I know why the cases lost: because the leaseholders confused two interlinked issues and did not have legal grounds to withhold payment. Not dissimilar to this case.

DVardysShadow

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I think it's not getting through to you, DVardy! The only way the case that can be taken to court is if there are service charge arrears. I advised yesterday that the current arrears must be settled, and the refund for the previous financial year argued separately. You are all talking like court is a done deal when it is a threat!

If none or part of the arrears are cleared then I would agree that you can only hope the case doesn't go to court. If it does go to court then either the court deems the case to be within it's jurisdiction (simple arrears) in which case you pretty much have no defence OR the court accepts there is a dispute (complex arrears) and refers on to an LVT.

You can't allow the case go to court and then argue the case for a dispute that is not how the system works. Several leaseholders tried that in my parents block and, in every case, all the arrears plus costs got lodged against their mortgage. My father sat on the board of the RTM company at the time so I know why the cases lost: because the leaseholders confused two interlinked issues and did not have legal grounds to withhold payment. Not dissimilar to this case.

So OP should take NO preemptive measures for it going to court????

Fire_Fox

Yes pay the bl**dy arrears in full within the prescribed seven days! If the OP pays the arrears why on earth would the management company complete the county court claim forms??