Major Works, Lambeth Leasehold: Who pays? and how much?

dimitri79

Problem: Rising damp in leasehold property. Lambeth Council are the freeholder. It's a converted Victorian flat - 2 bed flat upstairs and us in the 1 bed downstairs.
We suspected there might be a damp problem in the back bedroom when we bought the property. The homebuyers survery reported that they suspected damp, our own contractor said there was a damp problem.. As this would be the councils responsibility we had the council assess this before completing. The council sent someone to inspect and reported back that there was no issue.
It became apparent when we moved in that there definitely was a problem, and we've recently established that there is rising damp - no dp membrane etc.. floor needs digging up. Big job.

Council have started the Section 20 Major Works consultation thing. Their contractor has quoted ~£5100 and they are billing us for ~£2400.

I have two main questions..

1) Given that the council incorrectly gave us the all clear when we were buying, would we be able to challenge this and refuse to pay?

2) The estimate of costs breaks it down as follows (exact figures not shown)..
Total chargeable cost: £5100
Lease percentage: 44%
Flat contribution (inc admin charge): £2400 (so 44% + admin)
Your contribution: £2400

From what our upstairs neighbours have told us, they are being billed for remainder to make it up to £5100.
Surely the Council as the freeholders have responsiblilty for this, why are we paying it all?
The contracts clearly state that they take responsibility for the maintainance/repair of structural walls, flooring etc etc.. and yet the appear to be passing the entire costs over to us?

I have been researching, phoned LEASE etc - apparently its usual for councils to put into contracts that any major works are split 50:50 or there abouts between the council and leaseholder. My contract doesn't specify what the division should be, just the we are expected to "contribute a rateable proportion".

Can anyone shed any light on this or give me an idea of where we stand??

clutton_2

how long have you lived there....

did you raise this damp matter with your solicitor before you moved in ?

dimitri79

Almost 3 years.
We did raise the issue with the solicitor, he advised the we get the council to look at it - we did this and they reported that there was no problem.

ILW

Why should the council have to pay it?
Do you pay into a fund for possible future repairs and maintenance?

Richard_Webster

When you bought you should have been advised that you would have to pay a proportion of the cost of any works to the structure of the property (assuming that is what the lease says).

If therefore your surveyor reported that there was damp you should have expected to have to pay to have the damp remedied.

If someone from the Council came out and said there was no damp then I would have wanted an explanation form him and would have put that to my surveyor to see what he thought of it - why pay a surveyor is you ignore his advice?

A principal reason for having a surveyor look at a flat when buying it is to see if there look as if major works will be needed which will be charged to you in the service charge.

I'm concerned here that there seems to be a misunderstanding of responsibilities - where did you think the Council would magically get the money from to do the work if not from you?

dimitri79

The reason I have thought that the council would be paying for a proportion of the works is that the guy from LEASE told me this was usually the case (as I mentioned above)... seemed to make sense to me given that every piece of documentation I have read says that freeholder, the council is responsible for structural maintenance, repairs etc (as mentioned above) and we pay a proportion.
I may well have got this totaly wrong, but that's not for want of trying!!! I'm pretty new to this - hence speaking to LEASE, reading whatever I can find, posting on here etc

dimitri79

Also, if the council had reported back that there was damp and they would be looking to repair that during our leasehold then we would have argued for a reduction on price from the previous owners (and got it). We understood that we would be liable for some of the costs - that's why we wanted to know about it before we completed on the purchase.

ILW

dimitri79 wrote: »

The reason I have thought that the council would be paying for a proportion of the works is that the guy from LEASE told me this was usually the case (as I mentioned above)... seemed to make sense to me given that every piece of documentation I have read says that freeholder, the council is responsible for structural maintenance, repairs etc (as mentioned above) and we pay a proportion.
I may well have got this totaly wrong, but that's not for want of trying!!! I'm pretty new to this - hence speaking to LEASE, reading whatever I can find, posting on here etc

It appears that is exactly what is happening. Or am I missing something?

neas

yep you pay a proportion of the repair cost to the council and so does the other leaseholders .

dimitri79

Ok, thank you! that would explain the confusion. LEASE told me that the cost is usually split between council and leaseholders but it sounds like that might not be the case?

ILW

dimitri79 wrote: »

Ok, thank you! that would explain the confusion. LEASE told me that the cost is usually split between council and leaseholders but it sounds like that might not be the case?

It can get confusing when some of the residents in a block are still council tenants. In your case seems pretty simple in that any repairs are paid for by you and the other leaseholder. You could look at taking over the freehold from the council at some point.