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The Great "Leaseholders, tell us your service charge tales" hunt
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Our whole estate technically pays a service charge, including houses, however when built many properties including the roofs of the flats had solar panel installed and we have a small wind turbine, the money made from these goes towards upkeep and so residents don't currently pay a service charge. Each year a certain proportion is set aside for community activities/purchases.0
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When i sold my lease hold flat i discovered that the management agency is entitled to charge a "reasonable" admin fee for access to information that may be required by a buyer's solicitors. This reasonable fee for me was around £300, and they were incredibly slow to respond, and at one point told my solicitor they could not give him the information as they no longer managed the building (which was completely incorrect) this lead to a massive delay0
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tim123456789 wrote: »Yep
Every year they charged a substantial sum for sending a surveyor to value the property for insurance purposes.
What the hell! Who does that on an annual basis? You re-value once every (say 10 years) and in the interim just use the "official" house building inflation figures for the type of property that you have. QUOTE]
Well no again thats a misunderstanding. You need to revalue every 3-5 years, or if there is substantial physical change, and indexing for flats ( not houses) on annual desktop basis.
Adding first day uplift inflation can help but it leads in turn to a licence to overinflate the premium.Stop! Think. Read the small print. Trust nothing and assume that it is your responsibility. That way it rarely goes wrong.
Actively hunting down the person who invented the imaginary tenure, "share freehold"; if you can show me one I will produce my daughter's unicorn0 -
I used to live in a flat...........est. You could pay by credit card over the phone - for another fee. I felt like it was win win win win situation for them. :mad:
Hilda you will find some help here
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?55587-Late-payment-charges-SC-and-GRStop! Think. Read the small print. Trust nothing and assume that it is your responsibility. That way it rarely goes wrong.
Actively hunting down the person who invented the imaginary tenure, "share freehold"; if you can show me one I will produce my daughter's unicorn0 -
Weirdly, I have the opposite problem - the freeholder hasn't charged a service charge for six years..............
I've begged and pleaded, but feel powerless to achieve anything. I have images of ending up living in a run down slum that I'm paying mortgage on!
Sue, you can action via the following disrepair protocol.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/prot_hou
How about getting together with neighbours and
1-exercising the no fault right to manage
2 Asking the Tribunal to appoint a receiver /managerStop! Think. Read the small print. Trust nothing and assume that it is your responsibility. That way it rarely goes wrong.
Actively hunting down the person who invented the imaginary tenure, "share freehold"; if you can show me one I will produce my daughter's unicorn0 -
Do you get sight of the annual service charge account?
Are the charges in line with the terms and conditions of the lease?
Yes to the first. To the second, as far as I can tel, yes, but to be honest, I don't fully understand some of the Ts&Cs and suspect that the management company may be playing on that. For example, the lease states that the service charge includes the water bill, but the management company have split the water bill out as a separate charge. They say this is for visibility, I say it's a convenient way of charging us extra. But I wouldn't have the first clue what the legal view would be!0 -
But the service charge isnt a charge in itself, it is only your share of the sum total of estimated expense for the year.
If water is not inculded in that estimate and charged seperately then its hardly charging extra, is it?
Billed seperately is often useful as it is often based on actual consumption avoiding surprises as water consumption can vary enormously, and is of use to lanldords of flats who rent them out and recahrge their tenants.Stop! Think. Read the small print. Trust nothing and assume that it is your responsibility. That way it rarely goes wrong.
Actively hunting down the person who invented the imaginary tenure, "share freehold"; if you can show me one I will produce my daughter's unicorn0 -
Its interesting that so many issues here and elsewhere end up in screams of " reform leasehold its feudal" when imperfect though they might be, there are remedies to most situations.Stop! Think. Read the small print. Trust nothing and assume that it is your responsibility. That way it rarely goes wrong.
Actively hunting down the person who invented the imaginary tenure, "share freehold"; if you can show me one I will produce my daughter's unicorn0 -
when imperfect though they might be, there are remedies to most situations.
This is true, although it's a bit ridiculous it needs to go through a full tribunal process. Personally I'd prefer a quicker arbitration model for smaller issues.
The interesting thing is that since the commonhold form of tenure came in that was supposed to reform much of the system, I think it's literally been adopted by a handful of apartment buildings.
Nothing is as conservative as the housing market!0 -
But both mediation and arbitration is avaiable by agreement and under the lease ( but arbitration clauses cannot prevent either party from going to tthe FTT-PC).
Under the old and in fact new rulles parties are goingg to be asked "why not" especially when it comes to costs.
There are only 14 registered commonholds but
a- it is just as open to abuse by the "committee"
b- there is no section 20 consultation or FTT to go to its litigation or live with it.
c- none of the extensive rights available to leaseholders are available to common holders.Stop! Think. Read the small print. Trust nothing and assume that it is your responsibility. That way it rarely goes wrong.
Actively hunting down the person who invented the imaginary tenure, "share freehold"; if you can show me one I will produce my daughter's unicorn0
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