"Unauthorised" refurbishment in flat stairwell

leeper1974

My next door neighbour sold his flat recently but one condition was that he repaired the stairwell (its between 4 flats) and had this re-decorated.

He got 'verbal' confirmation from the Factors Hacking and Paterson that this would come out of the refurbishment fund that covers around 50 flats.

The 4 flats have now all received bills over £550 EACH to pay for this. We didn't sign anything to give this refurbishment the go-ahead and certainly wouldn't to benefit the seller. Were do we stand on this? Deeds say blocks must share repairs/refurbs but surely after this is agreed as a block not just on one person's "yeah, go ahead and do it".

Any feedback would be great.

cooltt

Jesus what did they paint the stairwell with GOLD!

It's needs to be agreed by everyone and they are required to give you notice. Basically they are trying it on, it can't be enforced.

leeper1974

LOL, it cost £2100 and there was some plasterwork involved too. I've found the factors 'here's what we do' thing and it says were they feel flats need to be consulted they will write to everyone involved. We didn't get anything.

cooltt

leeper1974 wrote: »

LOL, it cost £2100 and there was some plasterwork involved too. I've found the factors 'here's what we do' thing and it says were they feel flats need to be consulted they will write to everyone involved. We didn't get anything.

Exactly they've broken their own rules tell them to get stuffed (politely)

leeper1974

This was their reply to my email

'In the event of any Proprietor of a flatted dwelling in a block considering it necessary that any repairs should be executed, he shall be entitled to refer the question to the Property Manager, and in the event they decide such repairs are necessary shall have the power to order them to be executed forthwith and the expense borne by the Proprietors in equal proportions. The decision of the Property Manager shall be final and conclusive.'

Remember I didn't get any communication about this...where will they stop - erect a statue of the pope and we'll have to pay for it?

££sc££

it looks from your lease - if that's what they've quoted above it DOES NOT need to be agreed by all leaseholders. It is the freeholders responsibility to upkeep the building and for you to pay your share of it.

HOWEVER the freeholder's failure to carry out proper section 20 consultation will limit their ability to recoup the cost, to £250 from each leaseholder. And if this is the first you've heard of it, they obviously didn't send you a section 20 notice?

Another thing to question is the fact, it's only been split between 4 of you, not 50. Does it say in your lease how many it'll be split between other than, "and the expense borne by the Proprietors in equal proportions."

BigAunty

To the previous poster - is a section 20 something that operates for leaseholders in England and Wales, because the OP is enquiring about Scottish housing law which is often different?

The Shelter Scotland website has good information on Factors, plus you could check if your factor is a member of the Scottish Factors association, some kind of regulatory body, though I'm not quite sure of the name.

With the factors that we had, we had an agreement with them to notify of us a certain level of contribution before work took place. Do you have a written contract with them that stipulates any kind of similar decision/communication point?

To be honest, I don't know the law on the matter but from experience of running a self factoring in a tenement (tenement management scheme), I largely found owners to be stingy and critical when any work was carried out in areas directly unrelated to their own property and insistent that it was carried out if it affected them - actual common area work and cleaning that did not directly affect them was usually resented. But I do know that some Factors are deeply unpopular for their practices which are seen as strict and greedy.

tim123456789

££sc££ wrote: »

Another thing to question is the fact, it's only been split between 4 of you, not 50. Does it say in your lease how many it'll be split between other than, "and the expense borne by the Proprietors in equal proportions."

It's a stairwell serving just those 4 flats.

It would be perverse to spilt the bill between tenants not using that stairwell