Urgent advice needed: Dispute with management company over service charges

patrick_bs15

Hi all
Received a Tenant statement letter yesterday saying I owed £182.19 at the Company's year end of 31st March.

Letter says 'looking closely at the Tenant Statement it would appear that we were advised that there was an opening balance of £728.94 at 31st March 2010. (Management Company) subsequently issued a credit in respect of April to december 2009 (although it states 2010!) leaving a balance of Jan, Feb and March 2010.'

By law, are they able to just say 'sorry, we let service charges from over 2 years ago slip through the net, now we want payment'?

A bit of background to this is needed: current Management Company took over from one which basically didn't do its job at all (and was kicked out at an EGM). There was a period when service charges weren't levied at all by previous management company (April - Dec 09) because their offices moved to London and they simply forgot about us! New Management company voted in at EGM in Jan 10 and to be fair they've actually done their job properly... up till now...

So, it seems that they are now trying to claw back money from the end of the 2009-10 financial year for the 1st 3 months they were responsible for our flats.

By law, can they do this? If they can, I'll shut up and pay up, but I am far from happy (especially having just paid a cheque to them for £729 for the 2012-13 financial year literally days ago!)

Thanks in advance for constructive advice:)

patrick_bs15

P.S. Worth mentioning they will (of course) charge interest if this 'debt' remains unpaid after 30 days...

Nikkigb88

Hi Patrick

Sorry to hear about your problems. Unfortunately I'm not sure of the law with regards to your issue, however I am aware of the perfect company for you to contact (for free) who will almost certainly be able to answer your questions. Try the Leasehold Advisory Service (type the name into Google and they'll be the first result to come up) and I believe they are one of the most knowledgeable companies around when it comes to leaseholders. You can email them (I have done so in the past) but they do take several days to come back to you so I'd recommend ringing them (although the queue on the phone can be quite long too, but worth the wait). They've always solved all my queries in the past.

Really hope this helps.

Good luck!

BitterAndTwisted

Pay it. It's not that much money in any case. Of course they can levy what sounds like a balancing charge to a previous year's service charges: this is very common where the projected expenditure is less than actuals. All expenditure has to be covered by the leaseholders, regardless of how useless the agent was in calculating the projected future spend or how they administered the contractors on the development.

propertyman

I think that answer is that you are confusing a statement with an invoice.

If there was a balance outstanding of £728 odd that would have been reflected in earlier invoices, which went unpaid presumably as you were unhappy.

What the new agents have done is their job, they have shown that balances less the subsquent credit so that a new balance £182 is now due.

What you might not understand is that you do not owe money to agents but your landlord ( be it a freeholder or a residents company) , agents only control the funds which are held on trust- Agents are not a contractor who pays cleaners etc as subcontractors.

patrick_bs15

Thanks for your thoughts.

My gut feeling is that I should just pay it... it's not worth the hassle. I'll give the management company a ring first and see how they justify this additional payment.

propertyman

patrick_bs15 wrote: »

I'll give the management company a ring first and see how they justify this additional payment.

Erm.. see above post? The original estimate of £728 was adjusted by credit (due to no expenditure or dispute write off) up to cessation of management. £128 to pay.