Leasehold flat: £1200 payment demand for exterior decoration.

westernpromise

Is there a not a risk that the mgt company will say the contractors did the work in a third of the time by using 3 times as many people, i.e. the total labour hours were correct but the elapsed time was shorter? That would actually have saved money if there was (eg) scaffolding rental to be paid for.

In my last, white stucco, flat we always preferred 4 guys for a week over 1 guy for 4 weeks - we didn't want scaffolding all over the place a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

tomstickland

The labour costs would be the same though, just the fixed costs of hire would be divided down more. It would not explain the £18K price though.

I've spoken to the contractors today and I've now got the name and contact number for the surveyor. The contractors told me that they originally quoted £18K for the whole job but were told that because of lack of funds then only the exterior should be done. The quote was reduced accordingly.

I look forwards to hearing from the surveyor.

tomstickland

I've received an email from another leaseholder who is refusing to pay until the management company renegotiate the price!.
I'm going to see the so called "consultation" letters tonight.
I've just printed out an update letter for the residents.

We're awaiting the first reply from the agents now. Feel the anticipation!

clutton_2

stick at it tom !!!!

hazeyj

Yeah..your doing great. Keep up the pressure. Theres a rabbit away here somewhere.

tomstickland

Just had a boost. Chap who lives in one of the flats I thought was rented turned up at door and it turns out that he's the owner occupier. On the other hand, one of the flats I thought was owner occupier is rented out, but the leaseholder is still in regular contact. So we have 7 owner occupiers out of 9, but it's almost 8.

We spent about 45 minutes talking through the situation. The good news is he's totally for self management. He knows someone down the road who's self managed who we can talk to about it. He assured me that he thought that everyone would be all for ridding ourselves of the current management agents.

He also filled me in on the experiences of the 5 houses who bought out their freeholds. They had to resort to photographing the grass cutters asleep in their cars when they should have been working.



I think I'll look into forming a RTA (Tenants Association) next.

hazeyj

Thats brilliant. I must admit I find self management daunting but then again if anyone had told me a year ago what I was taking on when I bought my flat I wouldnt have had the confidence to do it, so I reckon you will be fine.

westernpromise

tomstickland wrote:

The labour costs would be the same though, just the fixed costs of hire would be divided down more. It would not explain the £18K price though.

Indeed - I am just pointing out that, unless you know what they based 6 weeks on, your knowing that they did the work in only 2 doesn't necessarily get you very far. If it was 6 weeks' work for 2 guys, maybe they put 6 guys on it instead and got it done in 2. If you see what I mean.

I reckon your best avenue of attack here is that the process was not followed. I doubt the contractor will reduce the fee retrospectively, because the estimate was accepted presumably on a lumpsum rather than a "time and materials" basis. Once the mgt co agreed that, it is, I guess, neither here nor there how long it actually took.

Question - what will happen if you win, the bills are reduced to £250 and the mgt co then has a £10k deficit? Won't they just pass that back to you, as well?

I had a colleague once whose mgt co wanted £25,000 per flat to underpin a Victorian mansion block. Various lessees took them to court over it, and of course the mgt co just added its own legal costs onto everyone's service charge.

tomstickland

Time and cost are two separate issues.
I agree that time taken could vary from 6 months with one person doing the work to 1 day with a team of 100 and that's not of my concern. ie: I agree, I can't use a 2 weeks versus 6 weeks argument on the cost of the works.

However, my point was that the cost would roughly be the same, with only hire costs being divided down if the job was done more quickly. Hence my estimate would be roughly time independant.

Now, being realistic, I'd expect that the contractor would quote an expected time, not a theoretical time based on having 3 times as many people working there.

All will become apparent when I see the quotes.

Anyway, that's by the by because I spoke to the surveyor today and he was very helpful. The £18K quote was for the whole job (interior and exterior). The exterior work was quoted as £11K which is not too far away from an acceptable figure. He's going to send me the quotes and the tendering documents.

The contractors and surveyor seem to have acted properly in my opinion.

The issues are:
-management agent did not contact me to consult
-probably didn't follow correct procedures, but I still don't have copies of the letters yet
-they need to explain the bill. There should be £7K in the sinking fund, so there's only a 4K deficit, which works out at about £400 per flat. Not £1200. Or putting it another way, £1220 for 9 flats is actually a total of £11K, so maybe they have just ignored the cyclical redecoration fund.

and of course the mgt co just added its own legal costs onto everyone's service charge.

The LVT (Leasehold Valuation Tribunal) can deal with this.

tomstickland

More progress today.

The surveyor was very helpful and will send me copies of the quotes etc.
They charged £11K for the exterior decoration.

The managing agents were not able to explain to me how £11K of works for 9 flats became a bill for £1,095.14. I've emailed and phoned asking for more information.

I received confirmation of receipt of my first letter.

The woman who deals with the southern customers was very helpful. She's reasonably new to the job. I managed to explain in the nicest manner possible that there was a certain level of resentment within the block of flats regarding this mysterious bill. Ultimately answers will not be forthcoming until the "area property manager" returns on Friday.

We will continue.