Asbestos Report/Fire Risk Assessment

lulu650

Buying a flat and the last thing my solicitor asked for were the above reports for the communal area. Managing agents of the block of flats are asking £100 which the seller wants to pass onto me.
I'd assumed this was included as part of the service charge and would be openly available to any of the flat owners. Checked the lease but can't immediately see reference being made to statutory requirements included in service charge. Solicitor not back until the New Year.
Any ideas before then from those with experience of this?

lulu650

Anyone.....??

SeanCo

lulu650 wrote: »

Buying a flat and the last thing my solicitor asked for were the above reports for the communal area. Managing agents of the block of flats are asking £100 which the seller wants to pass onto me.
I'd assumed this was included as part of the service charge and would be openly available to any of the flat owners. Checked the lease but can't immediately see reference being made to statutory requirements included in service charge. Solicitor not back until the New Year.
Any ideas before then from those with experience of this?

Two points:


If the property was built or substantially renovated post 2000, the a survey isn't necessary as building regulations prohibited the incorporation of asbestos: hse.gov.uk/asbestos/faq.htm#property-contain-asbestos (I cant post the full link as I'm a fairly new member)


If it wasn't then the administration fee must be reasonable. If a survey has to be done from scratch then £100 is reasonable, but if the charge is just for photocopying an existing report, it clearly is not. Ultimately you take this to the First Tier Tribunal for a ruling if necessary.

moromir

lulu650 wrote:

Buying a flat and the last thing my solicitor asked for were the above reports for the communal area. Managing agents of the block of flats are asking £100 which the seller wants to pass onto me.

Firstly - it is normal practice for the vendor's Solicitors to make 'Enquiries' of the residents association/managing agent after recieving the 'Enquiries' from the buyer's Solicitors.

Enquiries will usually comprise 'Questions' (which can be anything from a handful of questions up to something nearing the the Spanish Inquisition, they'll ask for things like confirmation of the budgets, how the service charge is due, where Notice of Transfer should be made, whether there are significant debtors on the development (i.e. establishing how solvent the management company is) etc), along with requests for copies of the insurance schedule, past year's accounts, asbestos reports, fire safety reports, etc.

Usually, the Vendor pays the Managing Agent's costs in supplying these documents, but, there is nothing to say he can't ask that the buyer pays.

Is the £100.00 just for the asbestos/fire safety report or for ALL the Enquiries? If its all the Enquiries, thats a very good deal.

Remember that it is probable the agent is VAT registered, so take off the VAT and its £83.33 for two reports.

Or £41.66 per report which seems pretty reasonable to me.

I'd assumed this was included as part of the service charge and would be openly available to any of the flat owners.

Unfortunately as you've learned this was probably the wrong assumption!

Checked the lease but can't immediately see reference being made to statutory requirements included in service charge. Solicitor not back until the New Year.

There will be a whole section on the rights and obligations of the Freeholder and their right to make charges (and probably something about transferring some of those aforesaid rights and obligations to a Management Company).

Any ideas before then from those with experience of this?

Also please note that I'm not entirely sure there is a statutory requirement for a fire safety report, only that the communal areas must be 'safe', which the Directors could potentially establish themselves (might be wrong on this if Regs have changed).

lulu650

Thanks for answers. Block of flats is built approx. 1988. But not sure what is meant by taking this to the First Tier Tribunal??


Very good point about seller's solicitors making enquiries from the Managing Agents. My solicitor has said he doesn't understand why we haven't been given answers via the solicitor and it seems to be the seller giving the answers to their own solicitor. I'm now presuming she is doing this to save money.


Clearly I need to clarify the situation soonest!

SeanCo

In all probability the managing agents will already have a survey for the common areas if the building went up in 1988. They should charge a reasonable amount for providing a copy. If they proposed to charge say £100 for 10 pages of photocopying and wouldn't budge, you could appeal this charge to the Lower Tier Tribunal If you wished). It's a specialist court for matters ascertaining to leasehold properties.

propertyman

SeanCo wrote: »

If it wasn't then the administration fee must be reasonable. If a survey has to be done from scratch then £100 is reasonable, but if the charge is just for photocopying an existing report, it clearly is not. Ultimately you take this to the First Tier Tribunal for a ruling if necessary.

In ther case of presale packs etc this is not under the jurisdiction of the FTT.

propertyman

lulu650 wrote: »

Very good point about seller's solicitors making enquiries from the Managing Agents. My solicitor has said he doesn't understand why we haven't been given answers via the solicitor and it seems to be the seller giving the answers to their own solicitor. I'm now presuming she is doing this to save money.
!

No its a daft point Solcitors raise questions between themselves and of course in this case the person with the answers are the agents.

There will be many other questions asked at the same time not solely the ones about the FRA and Asbetos report.