Service charges for a flat i have left

davidt1

I moved into a flat in 2008 as a 75% shared owner. In 2011 I purchased the remaining 25% and put the flat on the market. After i had purchased 100% I was moved from a fixed service charge to a variable service charge without my knowledge. I was not informed of this change and despite repeated requests I never got an answer why.
I sold the flat in August 2012. I tried to pay the outstanding invoice with flagship housing to the date i left, however I was told that I needed to pay up until march 2014 and the solicitors would deal with any apportionment and adjustments. I promptly paid the bill and informed my solicitor that this was now paid. He said he would deal with all the apportionment and deal with the money on the purchase of the flat.

I just received an invoice from my solicitor that was sent to him from flagship housing stating that I owe a couple of hundred quid as they have finally completed the accounts from 2012/2013 and decided they want a bit more money out of me.

Can they do this? As far as I was concerned I had made full and final settlement of the account. If there were likely to be any differences they had ample opportunity to work this out between april and august, and at very least should have surely told me that some kind of provision should be made?

If i had dealt with this myself as I wanted to, then I would have made sure it was clear on what was owed and if this was a final settlement or not.

My solicitor has 'helpfully' recommended that I pay the bill so he can close his file. I feel that this should not be my responsibility as he and flagships solicitor have surely been negligent in not picking this up and making allowances for this or at very least informing me that this situation could occur. I can only assume that if i pay this then exactly the same thing is going to occur prorated for the 2013/2014 accounting year.

Am i being unfair here?
If this was the other way round I would not expect a refund as I had sold the place so it is not anything to do with me anymore.

Having just moved and a baby coming soon, I do not have the money to pay this, so I'm a getting a bit worried about it.

Guest101

Did u get ur apportioned payment when u sold?

mavisangelica

This sounds like a similar situation/system we are in. We bought 100% of a shared ownership house years ago (along with the freehold.) We were paying a fixed fee then last year the HA wrote to us to say they were changing the way service charge was being done. Now we get an estimated bill at the beginning of the year (which you are expected to pay at the beginning of the year) and at the end of the year we get an actual bill with a breakdown of costs. Unfortunately our 'actual cost' was 3 times the amount of the estimated cost. So we were required to pay the difference.

BTW we challenged the final bill and they adjusted it as 'they had made several mistakes'. We still had a difference to pay though.

RobertoMoir

davidt1 wrote: »

I sold the flat in August 2012. I tried to pay the outstanding invoice with flagship housing to the date i left, however I was told that I needed to pay up until march 2014


I just received an invoice from my solicitor that was sent to him from flagship housing stating that I owe a couple of hundred quid as they have finally completed the accounts from 2012/2013 and decided they want a bit more money out of me.

Can they do this? As far as I was concerned I had made full and final settlement of the account.

What gave you this impression? From your description of what happened above, you paid up until the date you left the flat and were told that additional bills would follow. And they have.

davidt1 wrote: »

My solicitor has 'helpfully' recommended that I pay the bill so he can close his file. I feel that this should not be my responsibility as he and flagships solicitor have surely been negligent in not picking this up and making allowances for this or at very least informing me that this situation could occur. I can only assume that if i pay this then exactly the same thing is going to occur prorated for the 2013/2014 accounting year.

It seems pretty clear from your description above of what you were told that you were told this would happen, yourself. I'm not sure how negligence on the part of either solicitor enters the frame.

davidt1 wrote: »

Am i being unfair here?
If this was the other way round I would not expect a refund as I had sold the place so it is not anything to do with me anymore.

Having just moved and a baby coming soon, I do not have the money to pay this, so I'm a getting a bit worried about it.

Sadly, "fair" has nothing to do with it. If this is what you agreed to at the time you purchased the house, then you may well be stuck. While you might not have the 'few hundreds' to pay it, you may find that preferable to finding the 'several hundreds more' needed to fight it.

phill99

Guest101 wrote: »

Did u get ur apportioned payment when u sold?

The word you are still looking for is 'you'.

19lottie82

phill99 wrote: »

The word you are still looking for is 'you'.

Don't worry, we all knew what they meant.

davidt1

Roberto. You have misread. I was not told there would be additional charges. I was just told to pay the full year and that the solicitors would return the proportion overpaid from aug 2013 to march 2014 by adjusting the sale price of the flat.
No one has ever memtioned additional charges.

Guest101

phill99 wrote: »

The word you are still looking for is 'you'.

We doing this again, it's called short hand, but if it makes u happy, u carry on commenting.

custardy

Guest101 wrote: »

We doing this again, it's called short hand, but if it makes u happy, u carry on commenting.

No its not. Its a throw back to old phones
Technology has moved on.

moromir

Your lease will almost certainly contain provision for the management company to recoup service charge deficits from lessees (or indeed, refund service charge overpayments if the Accounts allow it).