Site Management company taking the p#ss? Am I being conned?

vicxzy

Hi Guys,

Can anyone tell me if its normal/usual for a site management company to request £199 plus VAT so £234 when you sell a leasehold property for a 'sellers pack'?
It contains a copy of their service charge bill etc & their accounts for the last 3 years.
Our Buyers Solicitor requested confirmation of the monthly service charge from them & this is what the management company say it will cost to me as the seller to get the info.
Sounds like a con for a few pieces of paper???
Who can I complain to about this?

clockworks_2

I think it's the norm. I got charged £175 plus VAT for mine too.

moromir

Your buyer's Solicitor won't just have asked for a copy of the service charge account if they are worth what the buyer is paying them.

They will ask for the majority of the following documents:
1. Service charge account (several pages)
2. Company accounts for the last three years (these are often sent you to annually - dig out your copies!) (30 pages?)
3. Replies to questions (can be anywhere from 10 to 70 (!!) questions) (10 pages?)
4. Copy building insurance schedule & policy (40 pages?)
5. Asbestos reports (20 pages?)
6. Fire risk assessment reports (20 pages?)
7. Copies of memorandum and articles of association (10 pages?)

Copy numbers very rough obviously the larger the development the more comprehensive the documents.

tim123456789

vicxzy wrote: »

Hi Guys,

Can anyone tell me if its normal/usual for a site management company to request £199 plus VAT so £234 when you sell a leasehold property for a 'sellers pack'?
It contains a copy of their service charge bill etc & their accounts for the last 3 years.
Our Buyers Solicitor requested confirmation of the monthly service charge from them & this is what the management company say it will cost to me as the seller to get the info.
Sounds like a con for a few pieces of paper???
Who can I complain to about this?

you can challenge the fee at an LVT.

But being charged is the norm and the fee may not be excessive depending upon what it is for.

Richard_Webster

My clients were selling a flat and the buyer's solicitors sent me a set of enquiries which I sent on to the managing agents who said that they charged so much per question and did not produce a standard pack. They told me the charge for replying would be £834!

After some argument with the buyer's solicitors over the relevance of some of the questions I edited them and even then my clients had to pay £440 to get a set of answers.

Probably if the charge was challenged in the LVT it would be held to be unreasonable but this is still timeconsuming (and if they want legal advice on it) costly.

So £234 is by no means over the top these days!

propertyman

I was once asked by a solicitor, a firm that rarely did conveyancing, to expressly answer every question they raised in their questionnaire and their enquiries as they felt a standard pack was unsuitable.

Oh and that there was no reason it shouldn't take more than a day....

When asked for nearly £2000 ( a lot of questions) and courier fees they accepted the most excellent pack in 3 days for £300 plus VAT, plus information that they needed but did not ask for

artbaron

My management company didn't charge for providing info when I sold my leasehold. I'm not surprised many do, however, leasehold is a licence to con money out of people.

propertyman

artbaron wrote: »

My management company didn't charge for providing info when I sold my leasehold. I'm not surprised many do, however, leasehold is a licence to con money out of people.

Ah so you must be one of those people or companies that work for free then?:o

That some overcharge and under deliver is true, but most charge a reasonable rate for a good service, but leaseholds are deserving of unique con statue unlike banks or supermarkets then? :rotfl: