Service charge late payment

tewiii

I am not too sure where is the best forum to post this but I hope someone here can help.
I basically forgot to pay the service charge for a property I own while I was out of the country. Before going away, I gave my email details to the managing company so they could contact me if they needed to.

The service charge demand for 700 pounds was sent in May while I was away. I returned at the start of July to find the matter had been passed on to solicitors and there was now an additional 400 pounds to pay.

My question is, what is the obligation on a managing company to try to contact me before passing the matter on to solicitors. 1 email from them would have saved on the costs. Was the managing company right in going straight to solicitors without trying to contact me by email?

Thanks.

roonaldo

im not sure how the managing company are at fault here. you have already said you forgot to pay.

tewiii

Thanks for your reply roonaldo. I probably didn't explain properly.

I had asked them to contact me by email when the service charge was due and they did not do so. They accept that they have my email on record but say they do not have enough time to send out emails.

Tiddles12

Legally I suspect they were within their rights but morally I feel they jumped the gun.

£400 is really harsh and if you've always paid on time before, especially so. They've passed the matter onto their solicitors, presumably because they 'fear' you are not intending to pay, yet if they'd checked your email they would have known how to contact you. How can they justify 'not having enought time to send an email' when they clearly have enough time to start legal proceedings against you?

Maybe you can re-negotiate the late fee and ask them if you can pay less? Or it may be worth seeing if you can reclaim the late fee through the small claims court? Financial Ombusdman?

I wish you luck. My own management company have just charged me £96 for a late payment, justifying this as covering "photocopying, postal, telephone and labour costs". That's 1.5 day's wages for me! For a bit of toner and a stamp.