The Great "Leaseholders, tell us your service charge tales" hunt

Greenkit

I am a lease holder from my local council after buying my flat in the right to buy scheme.
One of the worst service charges was for painting the stairwell and landings on the 8 storey block of 34 flats.
the cost over £27,000 pounds which cost me £800 the reason for the high cost they had to use special paint in case there was a fire....they put it on top of concrete!!!! :mad:
The charge also included a 10% management fee even though no one came out to check on the work which lasted 3 months instead of a week....these contracts are tendered out the company that wins the contract then gets another firm to do the work at a cheaper rate.....biggest con ever.
I am charged £94 to change a light bulb.
I have given up fighting my service charge as they are a lot bigger than me and always threaten with legal action if it is not paid.

realised

Our management company recently gave every leaseholder an 'overspend' bill of £150 on top of the usual service charge

I demanded to see each and every invoice that created the overspend...

One of the strangest things I saw on there was £75 every three months to change the air freshner.....plus VAT!

Oh and they also tried to charge us for work completed in individual apartments :mad:

The good thing where I live is the residents association are great so the management company won't be trying it on again for a while....

jonnyboy122

I am currently a Director of the management company for the development I live on. We have pretty good managing agents (now, having dumped the ones the developer forced on us). The developer (national house builder beginning with "B"...) is still the free holder. It insists on getting the building insurance through one of its own subsidiary companies. It also insists on getting insurance for its entire estate holding en masse, and divvying the fees up across the developments.

We have sought our own insurance quotes which are considerably less based on the developer's rebuild valuation. We have also had advice the developer's have over valued that rebuild cost. The developer consistently refuses to provide information on the next year's insurance valuation until days before it is due, leaving little opportunity to challenge.

We reckon we have been overcharged on a development of just over 100 units by around £40k over three years... We are in the final stages of asking them to respond/recompense before taking them to FTT.

Even if you have a decent management company and decent managing agents, you can still get ripped off by a party outside almost everyone's control.

kazt2006

dI live in the North West and in a block of 32 flats on 5 floors inc car park. The ground rent is £150 per year to a large national building company - 4,800 seems excessive for size of plot n location. The service charge is due to rise to £850 pa next quarter (from £360 when they were built 7 years ago).

As an owner occupier, i go every year to management company agm to argue against increase as i don't believe what we pay represents value especially given the consultancy company engaged to operate the management company take the equivalent of 5 flats management charge before we do anything. I could become a director of the management company (as these are other owner occupiers) but I don't believe i could truly have any influence.

Granted the charges are relatively low but so are property prices and I consider the management charge a hindrance to selling my property on! I certainly wouldn't knowingly buy a leasehold property or flat again!

Goldiloz

My landlord has done a huge amount of work to the property but charged us about £35,000 over the course of the past 8 years on top of normal service charge. People disputed it but got nowhere. Always get a big statement of works but it is so much money. I can afford to have an accountant or solicitor to fight them so just paying £250 per month to get rid of the debt. Can't sell till its gone.

tim123456789

josordoni wrote: »

We have an ongoing situation with my mother's leasehold flat. It is a retired person's flat in a block controlled by Peverel. She has been in a care home for 2 years now, and the flat has been empty, as we can't find a buyer or a tenant in the current market, but the service charges are still being levied at full value of around £2000 a year. This despite the fact that she is not there to enjoy anything that she is paying for.

Council tax is not levied for properties where the owner is permanently in a residential home, so why should the leaseholder?

Because in most cases the money is still being spent. Just because flat number 36 isn't being occupied, doesn't mean that flats 1-35 don't want the communal area lit and cleaned etc, etc, etc.

It isn't the FH who will pick up the extra bills here it is the tenants of the other flats.

If you don't like the deal when looking to buy a LH property then don't buy one, is the simple solution.

And if you can't find a tenant then the rent must be too high.

tim123456789

Greenkit wrote: »

I am a lease holder from my local council after buying my flat in the right to buy scheme.
One of the worst service charges was for painting the stairwell and landings on the 8 storey block of 34 flats.
the cost over £27,000 pounds which cost me £800 the reason for the high cost they had to use special paint in case there was a fire....they put it on top of concrete!!!! :mad:
The charge also included a 10% management fee even though no one came out to check on the work which lasted 3 months instead of a week....these contracts are tendered out the company that wins the contract then gets another firm to do the work at a cheaper rate.....biggest con ever.

The management fee isn't for checking the work on site. It is for the back office task of placing the contract in the first place

tim

SueC_2

tim123456789 wrote: »

The management fee isn't for checking the work on site. It is for the back office task of placing the contract in the first place

tim

Is that really so?

I would have thought that a 'management fee' is a fee for managing the building - which would include checking the quality of work by contractors and managing their performance (as well as identifying what work is necessary and finding the best contractor for the job).

I would have thought that an 'admin fee' would relate to the paper-pushing side of things.

If it's as you say, whose responsibility is it to check the work on site?

seeroo

We're with Trinity Estates who manage all of the Persimmon flats and houses on our estate (all new builds about 10 years old). Mostly our issue is that they overcharge for everything. The largest thing in the budget is their fees (ex VAT). I know their accountancy charges are high because I'm an accountant and have done these types of accounts before. When they redecorated the communal area (which is pretty much 5 short flights of stairs (4 floors) they used a company that charged £8,000 (one of the quotes they sent was £11,500). I would have done it myself for the cost of the paint. Maybe we should put that to them next time lol.

They don't seem to manage any of the contracts for example the block pays £2,000 per year for landscaping which should be 20 visits a year. No landscaping is ever done. They mow the very tiny communal lawn a few times in the summer but that is it. The trees by the walkway to the flat are so overgrown you have to duck past them as you walk to the front door. They said they only cut them back at certain times of year and hadn't done it yet this year but they clearly haven't been cut back for a few years. I think it's because the contracts are run from their office down south (we're in the north).

We've had problems with the front door closer (too small for the weight of the door) and every time they send someone out to fix it they just tighten it, which loosens off within a month instead of changing it to one that is the right size for the door.

When our windows failed I told the estate contact about it and without any consultation on the price she just went ahead and got a company to install them. I rang the company that they used for a quote for my internal windows and they quoted £700 to replace the glass in 5 windows (I've had other quotes between £250 and £500) so god knows how much has gone on the management charge.

propertyman

SueC wrote: »

Is that really so?

I would have thought that a 'management fee' is a fee for managing the building - ?

Except in the cases of where fees are calculted as a % of spend it often falls into two parts,

The normal fees for management ,often a per unit fee and fees for major works and are often a %.

In the case of Internal redecs, the fee is for the inspection and preparing a specification of the works, heath and safety issues/compliance, tendering and then "supervising" -directing and checking- the works on site, valuing works completed for payments, and dealing with related queries from residents etc

The reason it is flame retardant is that the risk assessments for most council blocks are cautious over the disproptionate number of fires often with materials that contain an accelerant.

A normal trade paint will then ignite and/or produce smoke inhibiting escape.