Gah! Management Company from hell! (Long)

frivolous_fay

I'm absolutely seething mad. I've come home to a very unwelcome letter. Here's the story.... sorry, it's long!

- Management co. got quotes for roof and decorating works to our block of flats. (Jan. 06) Billed each flat 1/22th of the cost, less anything they had contributed to the so called 'reserve fund'. (May 06)

Our bill was a little over £800. There was a dispute at this point between the residents and the company regarding the way they had gone about dealing with this bill, ie. no warning that we would have to contribute, rounding up in their favour, etc. etc. Anyway, we had a meeting with the company lady, (September) it was all very civil, and we sent a cheque for the first part of the work (the roof) afterwards. (After a good month of asking repeatedly who to make the cheque payable to). Cheque was banked very promptly around the 25th October.

A couple of weeks into April 07, and the work on the roof finally got started. Pretty shabby job, but that's another story. We were pleased the work had finally been done and began thinking about sending the remaining £400-ish we owed for the painting.

Before we got around to doing it, we received an 'invoice' summary (3rd May)

The invoices it supposedly quoted were either made up (no. 00000000000) or completely unrecognisable. The amounts shown as defecits didn't match anything they had previously invoiced us for, and the descriptions of the invoices were meaningless. The total was almost £400 too high.

I emailled the accounts dept. immediately (12th May) and requested a corrected invoice. I explained what I thought it should be, and that none of the invoice numbers or descriptions made any sense. I'd have phoned but it was the weekend and we were going away for a week.

On our return from hols, we were greeted with another, virtually identical invoice summary, with an added threat to charge us £50 if we didn't cough up. No-one had responded to my email.

I forwarded the email I had sent to the accounts dept. to the lady who had just taken over the management of our block (not the same one as back in '06) explaining that no-one had replied and I was concerned by the threatening nature of the (incorrect) invoices. (19th May) She promised to chase accounts. I hadn't heard anything by 23rd May so I mailled her again.

29th May - accounts email me, apologising for the delay and saying they are unable to check their accounts as they're 'with the chartered accountant' (Ha bloody ha) I'm told they will be back 'very soon'

We sit tight.

14th June - receive 3rd nonsensical invoice, but with the added bonus of a £50 fee (+ VAT) and further threats to contact our mortgage providers (who don't exist) to put in a bad word, and to chase us for the debt. No covering letter, no reference to any ongoing discussion about the amounts.

I've drafted an email to the person in accounts + management rep. to say I'll gladly pay the outstanding amount, as soon as they correct their records and ask for the right amount! If I had my way I'd be straight on the phone to them tomorrow, but I'll be flying out of the country at 6am. My O/H wants me to tell the company that we have consulted our solicitor about the situation. I don't think things are quite that bad yet.

It's just getting stupid. I daren't send a cheque for what we owe because they clearly have no record of the last one we sent (despite banking it) and I don't think it's unreasonable to insist on a correct invoice. The invoices, threats and charges are being generated, apparently, by a robot. The accounts department are apparently being run by incompetents, and my last hope is that the management rep lady will deign to step in to help sort out the ridiculousness.

Suggestions, flames, comments? All welcome! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Meatballs

Have you asked the others in the flats what they have received?

RichyRich

Ahhh, service charges. The bain of the lives of landlord + tenant lawyers all over.

Be careful. If the service charge is reserved as "rent" in your lease (check), they may gain the right to distrain (take goods to the value of the service charge potentially owed) or even forfeit (end the lease with no compensation payable). For the latter, given that it's a residential premises, they'd probably have to go to court.

This area of the law is a minefield. Granted, they probably wouldn't get far in court seeing as they're incapable of billing you properly. Keep a copy of all correspondence, records of phone calls, etc., just in case. That way you can demonstrate you have acted reasonably.

£50 charge for late payment is probably unenforceable under the same principles as the bank charges.

Landlords are accountable for the costs of repairs - if they seem unreasonable you can refer the charges to a tribunal.

You can prove they've had the cheque - cheque stubs, bank statement show so. If push comes to shove your bank will be able to provide you with a photocopy of the cheque for a fee (around £10).

Sorry this info is a bit "bitty", but the best advice I can give is speak to either a solicitor or the CAB. The last thing you want is to lose your house.

I'm no expert (despite just completing a uni course in L&T law) but if there is anything needs clarifying let me know

Rich

frivolous_fay

Meatballs wrote: »

Have you asked the others in the flats what they have received?

Most other flats are rented, and the tenants have not had to deal with the bill.

Thanks Richyrich, that all makes sense. It's infuriating as we're willing to pay the correct bill, but they're displaying a woeful inabaility to understand what we owe, so heaven knows what point there is in asending a cheque.

I'm cautiously optimistic that a couple of phone calls will sort this out, but in the meantime I'm hopping mad.

olive84

How annoying! Do you have the original invoice? I would send them a photocopy of that, with a letter detailing the original cheque that you sent (cheque no, amount, date written and date cleared), and the amount that is now outstanding. I work in accounts, and the best way to deal with this stuff is definately by letter so that everything is recorded. If I speak to someone I get their name, and then follow up with a letter that starts 'following my conv. with *** on May 1st this is to confirm that blah'.

My sol has always said to be indignant in your letters if someone is threatening you and you are in the right, something along the lines of 'I do not appreciate the threatening nature of your correspondance, or the fact that you have seemingly changed the amount payable by ourseves with no prior consultation'.

Anyway, good luck, hope that has been helpful.

Doozergirl

I think you should contact the people at https://www.lease-advice.org

THere is a very strict procedure that managing agents should follow and, if they don't do it properly, it means that the leaseholders only pay a certain amount towards the work (£10 or £350)

I think Tom Stickland has more knowledge of this than me, otherwise put a call in tommorow to lease advice and ask them to clarify exactly what needs to happen in the process for it to be 'reasonable'.

frivolous_fay

I don't object in principle to paying the bill. I didn't like having to, but the work was desperately needed.

I can't do anything more than the email until Tuesday I just hope that someone with a brain looks at the situation by the time I get home.

frivolous_fay

*gasp* Huge surprise...

- No response to emails
- Vague letter from company about something unrelated
- New style invoice combining our 'defecit' with the quarterly payments which we pay by direct debit anyway, so that seems a bit unnecessary. Perhaps they just get a kick of sending out invoices that have £1,000+ numbers at the bottom of them.

I'll be on the blower tomorrow with my steadily growing handful of nonsensical paperwork in hand...

[Deleted User]

might be helpful

http://www.pglaw.co.uk/pdf/articles/Commonhold-and-Leasehold-Reform-Act-Services-charges.pdf

frivolous_fay

Well, over-worked-sounding lady in accounts said that the charge shouldn't have been added to our account, and she's removed it. :j She's going to come back to me about the mysterious invoices once the accounts are back. I find it baffling that the entire accounts department seems to have gone into meltdown just because the wretched chartered accountant's doing the books. :mad:

The reason for the 00000000 invoices is (wait for it) that they were raised with another company, ie. the previous management company (which was bought out by the present one) Sounds pretty lame to me. I pointed out that if I had to pay my bank to prove I had paid, they'd be receiving the bill.

Kittie, that pdf looks very interesting, especially the part about auditing the management company! I bet that costs a lot though...