Advice Pls - Non payment of Shared Insurance

Ruthy1604

Hi,

I'm hoping some of you can give me some advice. Please be gentle as I'm new to this forum.

DH owns a leasehold flat in a converted Victorian House. The Freeholder has been AWOL for longer than I have known DH (20 years) and there are 3 other flats. All are rented out. All management of the property is done by me and the letting agents (for 3 out of the 4 flats).

We started a Right to Manage Company a couple of years back with a view to taking over the Freehold, but have not started the process yet (due to cost & apathy from the others). One of the leaseholders chose not to join. He has always been difficult to get money out of for the shared bills and has paid nothing towards the insurance for 3 years now.:mad: Non insurance is not an option as the whole building needs to be insured so the others have just paid extra into the company bank account to cover it.

I am thinking now of taking him to the small claims court as we are fed up with subsidising him. But I am unsure of exactly who he owes the money to. Its not the RTM company as he has nothing to do with that (although we all pay in & the insurance is paid from there). Its not DH really as all the others are owed money too BUT the insurance documents are addressed to DH & are generally paid on my Credit card to speed up the transaction.

Who should start court proceedings do you think?

Many thanks for reading

cattie

Have you spoken to anyone at https://www.lease-advice.org about the matter?

G_M

If you are not the freeholder, you cannot take him to court for non-payment of ground rent. Or service charges. Or insurance. Or....

Only the freeholder can do this, as that is who he has the legal relationship with.

Unfortunately this is the problem with 'informal' management arrangements.

Does the leaseholder in question have a mortgage? (You can check by downloading his leasehold Title from the Land Registry here for £4. Look at section 3 the 'Charges Register').

If he has a mortgage, a condition will be that insurance is in place. You could threaten to contact his mortgage lender to tell them there is no insurance. Or actually do it....

Ruthy1604

cattie wrote: »

Have you spoken to anyone at www.lease-advice.org about the matter?

No - I hadn't though of that. I will try them on Monday.
Many thanks

Ruthy1604

G_M wrote: »

If you are not the freeholder, you cannot take him to court for non-payment of ground rent. Or service charges. Or insurance. Or....

Only the freeholder can do this, as that is who he has the legal relationship with.

Unfortunately this is the problem with 'informal' management arrangements.

Does the leaseholder in question have a mortgage? (You can check by downloading his leasehold Title from the Land Registry here for £4. Look at section 3 the 'Charges Register').

If he has a mortgage, a condition will be that insurance is in place. You could threaten to contact his mortgage lender to tell them there is no insurance. Or actually do it....

The trouble is, there IS insurance - he has just not paid for it. We cannot insure 3/4 of a building (unfortunately).
He has not complied with the fire regulations either, but thats a different matter.

G_M

Ruthy1604 wrote: »

The trouble is, there IS insurance - he has just not paid for it. We cannot insure 3/4 of a building (unfortunately).
He has not complied with the fire regulations either, but thats a different matter.

Ah - but does HE know you have insured on his behalf? Does his mortgage lender now.....?

It IS possible (though not ideal) for each flat-pwner to insure their own flat for buildings insurance. Some small converted blocks operate in this way.

Yes, it can lead to problems (building burns down, 3 flat owners claim on their respctive insurances, funds are received for 3/4 of the re-build cost, flat-ower 4 contributes nothing, how to re-build.....) but it happens.

Ruthy1604

G_M wrote: »

Ah - but does HE know you have insured on his behalf? Does his mortgage lender now.....?

It IS possible (though not ideal) for each flat-pwner to insure their own flat for buildings insurance. Some small converted blocks operate in this way.

Yes, it can lead to problems (building burns down, 3 flat owners claim on their respctive insurances, funds are received for 3/4 of the re-build cost, flat-ower 4 contributes nothing, how to re-build.....) but it happens.

I'm pretty sure he knows that insurance is in place, but I will definately look at seperate insurances next year. We are talking about less than £500 over 3 years now so its not huge sums of money, but it the principle.

I have just googled him & am quite shocked at the results so I'm not actually sure I want to take him to court now...

olly300

Ruthy1604 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure he knows that insurance is in place, but I will definately look at seperate insurances next year. We are talking about less than £500 over 3 years now so its not huge sums of money, but it the principle.

I have just googled him & am quite shocked at the results so I'm not actually sure I want to take him to court now...

Separate buildings insurance is likely to be more expensive so it may be worth putting the frightens on by telling his mortgage company that due to the freeholder not being around you will no longer be sorting out joint buildings insurance from x date due to some leaseholders refusing to contribute.