Problem with Property Management demand for payment

arunadasi

Hello! I hope you can help me with this problem -- I'm thinking of hiring a lawyer to dispute this claim.

This summer the outside of the building where I have a 2nd floor flat was repainted. I got a bill for £2064 in June: end of year balancing charge.

I did not have the money to pay at once. And the letter did not give me any deadline.

On 27th July I received another invoice; this time, the bill included a Half Yearly Rent in Advance, and a Half Yearly Service Charge in Advance. The bill now came to £2524.

Mid October I sent the company a cheque for the first amount: £ 2064.

I intended to write asking them to allow me to pay the half yearly rent and service charge in installments, just as I did for the first half of the year.

But instead of cashing the cheque they sent it to a Debt Management firm, who returned the cheque along wiith a demand for a payment of £2691.
This came out of left field. I did not receive a single reminder to pay the outstading amount.

I wrote to the debt management firm asking about the discrepancy: if I owed £2524, why was the demand now for £167 more???

When I didn't hear back from them (debt collector) I simply wrote to the management firm and sent a new cheque for the whole amount of £2524.
I just got two identical letters form the debt manament saying that the extra costs were for their costs!

I don't get this. It's just cheeky for the management company to send the case to a debt collector a couple of weeks AFTER I had sent them a cheque.

Why didn't the management company simply cash the first cheque and send a new demand for the service charge and rent? It was just a few hundred pounds; we could easily have come to an arrangement, as we have in the past. I've NEVER paid the whole amount in advance. I've always had a good relationship with the management company.

Don't they have to send a reminder and a warning before they engage a debt management company?

What rights do I have against this claim? (debt managment charges)

As I said earlier, I intend to fight it if I have the right. Since I had sent a cheque the management firm seems decidedly in the wrong, since the outstanding amount of £460 was not yet in arrears at all.

I have legal protection. I won't have to pay for a lawyer. It might be only a small amount but I need everything I can save: the £2064 was hard enough!

Jenniefour

What does your lease say and what is the agreement re payments with the management company? Sounds like you left this to rather late in the day - paying an invoice raised in June in October would not be acceptable for many companies and it would have been in your interests to let them know immediately that you did not have the money to hand then and come to an agreement with them.

I understand that your money situation is tight - but this is not the management companies responsibility. If I were in your shoes I would be calling the management company immediately to discuss this - in a co -operative and calm manner ! In other words, make good use of your good relationship with the management company to see what can be done. It is not in your interests to get into a big fight over this - and keep lawyers out of it for now except for seeking advice on how to resolve this.

Mila86

it sounds unreal to be truth)

ttd14

It sounds like the first bill would be for repairs / painting as per the terms of your lease, things like this are done around every 5 years. As it looks like you've been demanded payment, you obviously don't contribute to a sinking fund or reserve fund.

I *think* that even with cyclical works, the consultation process has to be followed, where you will be issued letters regarding costs and offers to suggest alternative contractors (please, anyone correct me if I'm wrong on this point)

However, MA's are under no obligation to issue reminder letters to you, only demand payment (in some cases the lease states they don't, however). They can return cheques on behalf of their client should it not be in full settlement of the debt outstanding so as to not prejudice their position. Basically, they will be looking to contact your mortgage providor for payment by threatening to forfeit your lease. This can only be done if pure service charge debt is above £350 (which it is) or been outstanding for more than 3 years, which, by the sounds of it, it hasn't.

They will argue the admin charges have been incurred pursuant to a breach of the terms of your lease and under Schedule 11 of the Commonhold and Leashold Reform Act 2002. You do, however, have the right to challenge these fees through an LVT, or Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. Although ther client has a contractual and statutory right to the charges, there is no previously established case law to determine what is a 'resonable' charge, all statutes and your lease remain silent in this respect.

Advise them you will approach the LVT with a view to challenge purely their admin fees unless a negotiation can be reached?

clutton_2

a debt collecting company has no legal right to add its charges onto a debt you have with a third party. Debt collecting companies are employed to frighten and bully debtors into paying up.

The only authority who can add costs onto a debt is a judge in court....

But i agree with others communications are the key and it seems you were a bit lacking .... i think you need to put a paymentn plan in writing and send it in straight away with sincere apologies.

then read your lease and see what it contains in view of late payment penalties ... IF ANY

moromir

I think you'll find that the majority of leases specify that the service charge is due quarterly/half yearly in advance.

However the Directors of the management companies usually have provision to allow lessees to pay by monthly standing order to help them budget/spread the cost.

HOWEVER when things start getting legal, they have to act in accordance with the lease and bill accordingly, which is why you will have suddenly gotten the bill for months 'that weren't due yet'.

This is all hypothetical until you read your lease but is most likely the case.

arunadasi

ttd14 wrote: »

This can only be done if pure service charge debt is above £350 (which it is) or been outstanding for more than 3 years, which, by the sounds of it, it hasn't.

?

No, the pure service charge debt is £300. It is for the current half year, which means that de facto I was only just over £150 in arrears at the time of the first letter form the debt collector!

I agree that I should have written them with the promise to pay in October (which I did, as soon as I could) -- I just don't understand why they couldn't have sent the cheque back to me themselves, if they wanted the whole amount. I'm not very good on the phone so I guess I should try to engage them in correspondence? I guess they won't cash the new cheque either.

fimonkey

This forum is becoming increasingly judgemental! So what if the OP didn't communicate with the management company, nothing he/she can do about that now and they've come to this forum asking for help with the matter in hand, not whether they were wrong or right to pay an invoice so late.

OP..I would recommend you look on consummer action group forum for more detailed help on dealing with this debt and the DCA/bailiff company. Bailiffs/DCA's are bullys and you do not have to play their game, a couple of strongly worded letters to your management company should do the trick, also cc in your MP and get him/her involved.

Basilcally, as I understand it (which means I might be wrong) a company can either pass the debt onto bailiffs but still keep ownership of it, or they can sell the debt to the bailiff company (usually for much less than what you owe). If its the former then you can get the company to 'take back' the debt and pay them only - thus not paying the bailiffs stupid fees (I have successfully done this for a friend in the recent past).

My one piece of advice is to not deal with the DCA other than IN WRITING, always recorded delivery. NEVER EVER EVER EVER answer the phone or door to them!

Good luck.

moromir

fimonkey wrote: »

This forum is becoming increasingly judgemental! So what if the OP didn't communicate with the management company, nothing he/she can do about that now and they've come to this forum asking for help with the matter in hand, not whether they were wrong or right to pay an invoice so late.

Absolutely no one in this thread has responded to the OP in the manner you are suggesting they have. The only person that has even touched on communcation with the MC has done so in a very factual manner, and offered advice on how to move forward from that point.

The OP has received a wealth of information which will hopefully help them understand the legal constraints that the management company have to operate under, the process for sorting out the arrears and how to manage their relationship with the management company in future.

clutton_2

dont go to your MP - this is a ridiculous piece of advice... you are in the wrong, as you know, and you have to sort out an amicable solution.. adopting confrontational advice such as this will only lead to more difficult business relatioships and you will have to continue this relationship for years if you stay there...

A softly spoken heartfelt admission of error goes a long way when trying to resolve a situation in which you are in the wrong... and is much more conducive to better relatoinships in the future

Some firms think that if they accept a lesser cheque that they cannot them ask for the remainder of the debt. This is not true. As lons as the recipient writes back to say that they have accepted the cheque in part payment, so i cannot see why they should have returned the cheque.

goo gluck

olly300

fimonkey wrote: »

This forum is becoming increasingly judgemental! So what if the OP didn't communicate with the management company, nothing he/she can do about that now and they've come to this forum asking for help with the matter in hand, not whether they were wrong or right to pay an invoice so late.

As per what the others have already said.

Fimonkey you have to remember that many people read public forums for a long time before posting. Therefore explaining about what should have been done to avoid getting into such a situation in the first place (which you view as being judgemental) is actually helpful to others.

fimonkey wrote: »

OP..I would recommend you look on consummer action group forum for more detailed help on dealing with this debt and the DCA/bailiff company.

It would be unlikely the OP would get any better advise via the Consumer Action Group forum and they would also still be "judged" as you see it.

Some people are members of more than one forum........