Leasehold flat: £1200 payment demand for exterior decoration.

tomstickland

I finally got told the direct dial number for the property manager yesterday!

I've just called him.
He was quite reasonable actually, albeit in a slightly "I'm looking into it, I'll get back to you" manner. A master deflector I guess.

I explained several of our concerns.

It turns out that there is £8133 in the sink funds to cover the work, and somehow or other the total cost is £1800 hence the £1000 charge for each of the 9 flats.

I still find this hard to comprehend and I don't feel any clearer on how a 2 week redecoration job could end up costing £18000 regardless of VAT or contingency funds etc.

I also informed him that I hadn't been consulted and therefore I was not liable to pay more than £250. He didn't really argue about this, though he didn't positively agree with it either. Sort of wishy washy feeling really. I suspect a clever technique for propogating confusion and sidestepping any blame.

I asked why the letters didn't inform leaseholders of the sink fund levels and expected cost per leaseholder. He didn't really know and said "it's something that I think we should look into for future consultation exercises". How long has he been doing this job? (a few years actually).

tomstickland

How much work has been done?
31 windows painted
2 doors painted
Approx 50m of facia board painted

cattie

Very often when work is undertaken such as on your block, the quote given will be for the actual job, job & finish as opposed to payment on a man hour per day basis.

It is quite possible these are the terms your decorator's were employed under, so the couple of weeks spent completing the job have no reflection on the final charge. The charge would have been no different had they taken 10 weeks to finish the job in such a case.

Well done for what you've achieved so far. You've obviously got a lot of energy to expend.

tomstickland

Yes, I'm not bothered on the time/people balance. I just want to reconcile an £18K bill with not very much work.

tomstickland

Right I've got a few more thoughts on this now.

-I'm trying to trace the leaseholder for one flat. I've got the address from the land registry, but no phone number, no reply to my letter yet and when I called round the address it was a house that looked like it was rented out.

I called round this evening and spoke to the tenants. They rent from an agent (Countrywide). The managing agents are not prepared to give me the leaseholder's address.
Do you think the letting agents might be able to do so?

-Another leaseholder left a phone message saying that he had phoned today and his experiences were similar to mine.

-I'm a bit peturbed that the person we employ to "be the professional" doesn't know what's happening and can't explain why £18K of quoted work is now £11K of work according to the contractor and surveyor.

-I'm feeling vaguely charitable at the moment. Maybe he did genuinely think that £18K of work was being done and it would take six weeks.

-Hmm, maybe not. Surely he knows what was actioned?

hazeyj

Tom, your managing agent will have contact details for your missing tenant...you could try asking them to contact you by phone or letter?

Also, did you find out who your directors of the management company are?

You can also demand to see the invoices and related paperwork to do with this work.

It would be ideal to actually arrange a meeting with the agent and all leaseholders to explain themselves maybe?

Did you have a look at the documents that came with your purchase to see if directors are named on that?

clutton_2

i also think a meeting is essential - get a couple of dates when all leaseholders can meet, and ask which of them your management guy can attend.

goo dluck

tomstickland

Some good progress made.
Management agents have not contacted me.
But, another leaseholder phoned up the surveyor and managed to get a price for the work.
Meanwhile the detailed cost breakdown arrived through the post today.
I've spent a few hours analysing this and it adds up quite nicely.
I've just written an update for all of the leaseholders.

I’m now in possession of the quote for the works. I’ve analysed this, please find attached spreadsheet showing cost breakdown. I’ll photocopy the document at work tomorrow and post it through the letterboxes.

The surveyors today told Elizabeth (no: 38) that the total job cost was £11,710 excluding VAT. After adding VAT and then subtracting the reserves, it looks like each leaseholder will be liable for £625.

Some items on the quote were provisional values ie: an upper limit and they’d see how much work was necessary before working out how much to charge. The original quote for the work that’s been done was £15,810. This breaks down into £8,550 of provisional costs and £7,260 of non provisional work. The £18,338 quote that was included in the consultation letters included an additional £2,528 for interior work.

The actual cost of the work is £11,710. After VAT it rises to £13,759, subtracting reserves of £8,133 leaves a £5,626 shortfall which is £625 per leaseholder.

The £11,710 figure isn’t a million miles off an acceptable value. They seem to have spent £4,450 of the provisional money out of a £8,550 quote. This is just over half. £3,500 of that provisional quote was a contingency fund, and I doubt that this was used. If it’s not included, then they spent £4,450 out of £5,050 provisional funds allocated. That’s 88% of the provisional funds.

I’ve looked at the numbers quite closely. It is conceivable that all of £4,450 provisional spend went on the windows. There was already £2,500 of non provisional money for the windows. That’s a total of £6,950 spent on the windows, which is £217 per window. Guessing a rate of £50 per hour to employ a painter then that’s 4 hours labour per window. Total time of 128 hours work which is about 3.4 man weeks, or not far off 9 days work for 2 men.

Either way, I think we should be provided with a breakdown of the actual spend.

Please don't bother telling me that how long it took was irrelevant!
Essentially, the amount of time it took the two painters seems about right and price isn't totally extortionate.

I think that most leaseholders will be able to accept this new set of figures. There's been no explanation from the managing agent as to why they cheerily billed us for £1095 each.

As to meeting, I don't want to waste my time with these people; we can get enough leaseholders on board and then consider the full pros and cons of self managing.

I've had a response from another leaseholder today, so we're building things up.

Regarding the missing leaseholder, the management agents were not prepared to give me their details. Any idea on the law regarding this? The woman I spoke to probably assumes that she's not allowed to give me the information. Meanwhile I'm going to contact the letting agent to see if they'll help me.

hazeyj

Hiya Tom, I really think you should try one last time to contact the agent, if only to give them a warning they are due to be sacked. If you think what a mess they have made of this think of the accounts the mess will be in. This will take months to sort out whoever manages the place next. It would be good now to actually get a clear idea of the accounts situation especially as yout accounts hadnt actually been files this year or last. FYI there will have been a fine to pay for not presenting the accounts, I wonder who has paid this, the agent or the management company? You really need to find out what accountants they used.

Also, the director of the managing company will be able to force the leaseholders to send a letter from them to all leaseholders. As ive said before you need to find out who employed them and allowed them to stay in their jobs.

If they are a big company perhaps you could go to their head office? I found out the email address of the chief exec of the nationwide agent who used to manage our block. He was most understanding and gave the agent a kick up the bum but by then I had found my new agent and gave the old agent 4 weeks notice, with the backing of the freeholder.

tomstickland

I think you're misunderstanding my intentions.

I will be maintaining communications with current agent for the forseeable future. We're not going to look at self manage until we're ready, and even then it could take months to do.

They are employed by the leaseholders who are all members of the "management company".