Breach of Ground Rent T & C - Punative Charge?

safetyelf

10 years ago we had an extension built, went through the full planning permission/legal bit at the time. We overlooked informing the company to who we pay ground rental. This costs £12.60 a year and is paid by direct debit so is not something we have been overly concerned about.

They must have been looking around the estate because we have had a letter that we now owe them £372 (30 years worth of payment) just to consider looking at what will owe them.

Now I expect that we will owe them something (there's bound to be a clause in the fineprint) but I consider that £372 just to look at the case to be Punative.

Is there anyone out there with any advice (other than the obvious, we should have bought out the ground rental agreement in the past)?

Thanx

imho

I would go to Citizens Advise .

artha

safetyelf wrote: »

10 years ago we had an extension built, went through the full planning permission/legal bit at the time. We overlooked informing the company to who we pay ground rental. This costs £12.60 a year and is paid by direct debit so is not something we have been overly concerned about.

They must have been looking around the estate because we have had a letter that we now owe them £372 (30 years worth of payment) just to consider looking at what will owe them.

Now I expect that we will owe them something (there's bound to be a clause in the fineprint) but I consider that £372 just to look at the case to be Punative.

Is there anyone out there with any advice (other than the obvious, we should have bought out the ground rental agreement in the past)?

Thanx

Does seem a bit high. Don't know whether it gives you any guide to retrospective charges but when we bought our current house in 1985 our solicitor discovered that there was a covenant from the original builders that basically says that any development has to have the permission of the builder. Our solicitor also discovered that the attached garage had been added after the house was built (1963) but there was no record of the builder having given permission. We had to apply for retrospective permission and the builder charged us £50 to say yes