morgoed estates admin fees

gigz

Got a bill from morgoed estates saying they have been writing to me for 8 yrs to get ground rent (£8.52) and i had ten days to pay it plus £100 admin costs. When i phoned them to ask who they were (i had genuinely never heard of them in my life) he accused me of being one of these people who just throw bills unopened in the bin. I agreed to pay the £8.52 but not the £100. They said it would be returned. I then got a letter from my mortgage provider saying if i dont pay the full amount they would pay it for me and add it to my mortgage and charge me £75 for the privilege. So i phoned them to say i was disputing the admin charges and told them not to pay it. Got a letter from them today saying they payed it and i now have the extra £75 charge from them. Morgoed said when they were sending me these reminders they were also sending a copy of the same letter to my mortgage provider which was also blatant lies as they have no record of any previous correspondence from these. Can someone advise me what to do next, i don't dispute the ground rent but morgoed have bought the lease from a solicitor who retired (about 8 yrs ago) and in my eyes purposely left it to claim these fees.

G_M

If morgoed now own the freehold, then they are due the ground rent.

Of course, any demand for gr must be in the prescribed form. Was it?

As to the admin fee, what does your lease say?

More here....

The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 introduced rights in respect of administration charges. These are defined as 'an amount payable by a tenant as part of or in addition to rent, which is payable directly or indirectly for:

• the grant of approvals under the lease or applications for such approvals;
• for or in connection with the provision of information or documents by or on behalf of the landlord or a person party to the lease other than the landlord or tenant;
• costs arising from non-payment of a sum due to the landlord;
• costs arising in connection with a breach (or alleged breach) of the lease.'

Any administration charge demanded by the landlord must be reasonable in order for the landlord to recover the charge, and must be accompanied by a summary of the leaseholder's rights and obligations in respect of administration charges. If the summary is not included, the charge is not regarded as being payable.
The leaseholder has two courses of remedy, depending on whether the charge is variable or not:

• where the charge is variable, the leaseholder may make an application to the LVT for a determination of reasonableness, as with service charges. A variable administrative charge is one where the amount of the charge is not specified in the lease or calculated according to a formula specified in the lease.
• where the charge is fixed by the lease or a formula in the lease, the leaseholder may apply to the LVT to vary the lease, on the grounds that the amount specified is unreasonable or that the formula is unreasonable. If the LVT is satisfied, it may make an order to vary the terms of the lease, to substitute a reasonable amount or to amend the formula, either as requested by the leaseholder or as the Tribunal finds appropriate.