Mainstay and completing on house

pinkdora1

We have been in the process of buying our first home for the past 19 weeks. There seems to be an issue on the estate where we are buying with a maintenance company called Mainstay. Most of the estate were refusing to pay the service charge as Mainstay weren't doing anything. However, this dispute seems to be causing a massive problem on us completing on the house. I don't see how this could be as it is about the grass not being cut etc, nothing to do with our house. Our conveyancer is requesting information from seller's solicitor all the time, but none of the info they provide seems to be good enough. Both us and the sellers are getting frustrated, especially as there are people moving in and out of the estate all the time. Just seems to be us having the problems. Any advice on any similar situations would be great. Thank you

artbaron

The maintenance company is responsible for maintenance of the freehold buildings, grounds, communal areas, connection of services, etc. basically anything that's not inside your flat or house, so it's a serious issue if they're not fulfilling their obligations. Your solicitor is acting in your interests but at the end of the day you're the buyer so if you're OK with a bad management company just instruct your solicitor to go ahead. Personally I'd run a mile if existing leaseholders were withholding payment en masse.

ValHaller

You must be mad to want to continue with a purchase where you commit yourself to regular payments to a company who do nothing for the money. Even if you can put up with nothing being done, you will probably have a problem selling, because other buyers will not be so blas! as you.

WestonDave

To be fair your solicitor would be pretty stupid to allow you to complete without being sure that you don't get landed with the cost of paying Mainstay for the back maintenance charges that haven't been paid by the vendor. The solution is for the vendor to pay their account up to date, or for your solicitor to retain part of the purchase monies to cover that bill for 6 years until its statute barred. The other possibility is that the maintenance company is refusing to sign documents until it gets its money. Either way the solution is for someone to cough up.

However as above if they are ripping people off, are you happy getting into that arrangement yourself?

pinkdora1

Thanks for your responses. Our seller has paid the service charge to the end of this year and our solicitor has requested some money is put to one side to cover any other costs if they arise. We have family who live on the same estate as we're buying and they've had no problems and the estate is kept nice. Grass is cut etc and they are just surfacing the roads. Our solicitor is saying that the lender won't lend us the money if there is an ongoing dispute and that's why he's getting all the required information from sellers solicitor? However this process has been going on for 19 weeks now, so surely if it was a no go they would have told us for definite by now, otherwise we have wasted the past 19 weeks.

pinkdora1

Also have heard the estate is being handed over to the council within the next few weeks so maybe that might help

artbaron

pinkdora1 wrote: »

Also have heard the estate is being handed over to the council within the next few weeks so maybe that might help

Probably just mean the service charge will double and they'll waste the money in previously unimagined ways.

I'd certainly do more investigation before you continue but it's up to you.