Court papers sent to wrong address.....

rachel230

Hi,

Just been on another site (?) and have re-dirested my post here. I hope that is ok!

Wonder if anyone can advise me.

I own a leasehold property. It`s in a block of 9 flats of which I own one. There has been work done on the whole block as undertaken by freeholders and my share is £8000.

The freeholders have served me court papers for payment today.

However, the freeholders know full well that the property is rented out and I do not live there. Yet all mail goes to flat address. Someone (I think the tenant downstairs from the flat) forwarded the mail to me. This is the first time he has forwarded on mail because I think he saw they were from the court and was concerned. (We have a good relationship and he has my address and phone no as there were problems re some previous tenants which we communicated about at the time).

I had spoken to the freeholdres a while back and told them that they are well aware the proprty is rented out and that they should send any letters to my home address. They agreed and took note of my home address (even though they already had it in their files).

However they are still sending any mail to the flat address which clearly was not re-directed by anyone (why should other tenants have this responsibility!!). Only the court papers which were sent to flat have been re-directed.

Furthermore, the work on the flat began around October last year and was meant to finish by Xmas. As far as I have been told by tenants the scaffolding has just been taken down and they are still working on site. However, when I spoke to freeholders a couple of months ago (same time as I spoke to them about sending mail to my home address), the guy was very rude and excitable and demanded to know why I hadn`t yet paid! I told him I have no objection to paying (I don`t!) when the work is done. He told me I should have paid BEFORE the work began.

Any advice would be appreciated. As I say, I have no problem about paying, but was surprised to be forwarded on court papers, when the work is still ongoing!

Thanks
Rachel

ivavoucher

rachel230 wrote: »

As I say, I have no problem about paying,

Looks like that might be the answer.

G_M

I had spoken to the freeholdres a while back and told them ...

Did you put your new address in writing? 'speaking' is not enough.

Have you arranged for post redirection with Royal Mail? This is always wise with rentals as a whole host of organisations might write to you and you cannot rely on tenants to forward mail.

The charge is due, it needs to be paid. Whilst it is sensible not to pay contractors in full till work is complete (and hopefully the freeholder is doing this), it is only fair that the freeholder has the money ready for payment when due, otherwise he (freeholder) may have to pay the contractor and then pursue leaseholders like you with no guarantee of whether or when the funds would be forthcoming.

rachel230

Thanks for the helpful reply.

It would have been even more helpful if you addressed the points raised.

Are you saying that the work should be paid for before it`s finished and if not (and no paperwork has been sent to the correct address anyway), then the correct procedure is to issue court papers?

Rachel

rachel230

Thanks G-M for a helpful reply!

The freeholders know my address as when I bought the property all the legal stuff had my address on it and they knew the property was being rented out. On top of that we actually had a discussion where they admitted it was pointless sending any letters to the flat and agreed to send to my home instead!

Re: part paying - I do see that this is probably general practice when a large contract is undertaken, but there was never a payment plan/breakdown discussed. Only that they said I should have paid upfront!

And then the court papers sent to the flat.

Thanks
Rachel.

BitterAndTwisted

I find it difficult to believe that building works to the value of nearly £100k were proposed without there being some discussion about having them done and what provisions there might have been to pay for them. No sensible freeholder would instruct contractors and risk that kind of exposure with no guarantee that the funds would be forthcoming from the leaseholders. Were there no sinking-fund contributions as part of your quarterly service-charges in advance?

The freeholders are remiss in not ensuring that correspondence was correctly addressed to your home rather than the property itself but one way of ensuring that it did reach you was to have arranged Royal Mail redirection. I would take it up with the freeholders IN WRITING now to prevent this happening again. Of course, the only way to make it all go away now is to cough up in full ensuring all funds are cleared before the court date.

catfish50

rachel230 wrote: »

The freeholders know my address as when I bought the property all the legal stuff had my address on it and they knew the property was being rented out. On top of that we actually had a discussion where they admitted it was pointless sending any letters to the flat and agreed to send to my home instead!

Have you checked your lease? It may state that the management, who in this case seem to be the freeholders, will send communications to the flat owned by the leaseholder. Legally, it doesn't make any difference if you've asked them to send them elsewhere.

Re: part paying - I do see that this is probably general practice when a large contract is undertaken, but there was never a payment plan/breakdown discussed. Only that they said I should have paid upfront!

Have you checked your lease? You may find that the management have the right to collect payment for work from the leaseholders in advance. Have you asked them about arranging a payment plan?

Do you accept that the work is necessary and the price reasonable? If not, you can challenge it (see http://www.lease-advice.org/publications/documents/document.asp?item=7), though whether you can afford to challenge it, or have much chance of winning a challenge, is another question.

If you do accept that the work is necessary and reasonable, it would make sense to pay the money without putting the management in a difficult position, possibly resulting in the work taken even longer to complete. After all, if the work is necessary it has to be done. You don't want your flat to lose value because of poor maintenance, do you?

Don't forget that if you don't comply with the lease requirements, you risk forfeiting your lease. It's in your own interest to make sure you receive important papers which may be sent to you at the address of the flat where you are the leaseholder.

rachel230

Hi B & T,

Didn`t redirect mail as never lived there and apart from freeholder`s mail, no mail was ever sent to me at that address.

Re: sink fund - no -there isn`t one and yes - work plans were submitted to me. That did come to my address (home) but I think they are a huge company and different correspondance comes from different directions e.g. freeholders office, separate management company etc so it seems like not all information has been passed on and records corrected!

Do I need to deal with them or with the court? And shouldn`t I have paperwork detailing exactly what has been done and all work completed satisfactorily?

Rachel

rachel230

Thanks Catfish.

Yes - the work was necessary and there was no problem with that.

There was nothing in the original paperwork to suggest that work should be paid for in advance.

I received the details of work planned and the offer to put in tender. Since then - nothing - up until the redirected court papers! Don`t even think work is finished yet.

I am now unsure whether I have to address issues with court or freeholders (or both)

Rachel

catfish50

rachel230 wrote: »

Thanks Catfish.

Yes - the work was necessary and there was no problem with that.

There was nothing in the original paperwork to suggest that work should be paid for in advance.

It's what's in the lease that matters. See what it says about service charges.

I received the details of work planned and the offer to put in tender. Since then - nothing - up until the redirected court papers! Don`t even think work is finished yet.

That must have come as a shock, but you can't be sure what you may have missed because it was sent to the flat. Or, since you say they're a big company, it may just be incompetence or carelessness on their part.

I am now unsure whether I have to address issues with court or freeholders (or both)

Both. There should be something in the court papers to explain what you need to do in order to forestall court action (i.e. pay).

Be glad you have a management that gets to grips with essential works. My block of flats is slowly deteriorating into a ruin. I'd give my eyeteeth for a management that would arrange for work to be done and not charge rip-off prices for it.

PasturesNew

I can see how they'd need/want the money up front, so they can be assured they can pay the bill when it's presented to them at the end.... but what does your agreement/paperwork say?

I'd just pay it now to be honest.