Paying maintenance charge to HA but no maintenance has been done

mavisangelica

Defo go and see your ward Councillor. Ours was very helpful (probably also because ours used to live on the same estate which helped). They can write a letter on your behalf to the HA asking the info.

Disgruntled1967

RAS it is a small street off another established residential street. Not many areas to maintain and I pretty certain they haven't done any of them.

I hadn't thought of speaking to the ward councillor. I will find out who ours is and speak to them, I know most of the councillors here, just need to check which one is ours Thanks!

Norman_Castle

Incompetence and indifference is rife among housing association employees. What is the name of the housing association?. Use their complaints procedure to find out exactly what you are paying for. The Shelter website has advice on service charges but is not currently working.

Disgruntled1967

I'd rather not name and shame just yet Norman Castle just in case, although if anyone from there was reading they would probably have worked out who I was by now.

I like the idea of the complaints procedure, will try and find out how I go about raising a complaint.

dell12

I'm guessing there are a few flower beds or open spaces which belong neither to houses nor to the council?

Out of interest how much do you pay? If you're paying £10 a month or so the problem is that it's all swallowed up very quickly by paying even a single contractor to come and visit. It's silly really creating a street with just a couple of areas which are neither privately or council owned.

There definitely have been situations where the council have had to repay service charges for not carrying out duties.

Disgruntled1967

You've probably hit the nail on the head dell, there are random flower beds throughout the development, one of which is in front of our house. We have now been told that it is ours to maintain which we are happy with as it is in front of our house. However, we don't actually know what we can or can't do with the bed, as it is a new development I am guessing there are stipulations as to fences or hedging etc. We have not been told of any of these.

Another flower bed is at the rear of our car parking spaces, it is a large bed with a high hedge, we have tried to keep it clear, but the hedge is too high for us to attempt without a proper ladder and equipment.

No-one from the HA or any other contractor has been near either bed, the builders have apparantly told the HA that they are ours to do!

I just feel we are going round in circles. We are paying someone to do a job they are not doing as they say we should be doing it, we can't do it as we don't for sure we should be, and what we can do.

Meanwhile, the weeds and the hedge are growing again.

It's about £12 a month now dell. Meaning we have paid nearly £180 for nothing that we can see.

t0rt0ise

I questioned the service charge on my HA accommodation both last year and the year before. They wanted to charge me £250 for providing the electricity for one light bulb in a shared hall. I emailed the person named on the letter that advised us of the charge. It took a long time and several more emails to get it sorted but they eventually reduced the charge dramatically. The previous year they wanted to charge me for a door entry system and fire extinguishers etc that we don't have and I got that corrected too. You do have to be persistent but you do have the right to query these things.

Don't however withhold any rent. That just gives them the right to evict you eventually. Be a perfect tenant and they can't complain. And if you don't get anywhere with emailing, then raise a formal complaint as per their complaints procedure.

Morglin

We rent from an HA and pay a large charge for 'services' we don't actually get.

Their argument is 'take it or leave it', so it's just one of those things really.

We did try to force them to do things, but they rarely take much notice.

Lin

Mallotum_X

It mentions maintaining unadopted roads.

if the roads are unadopted then any future resurfacing etc will need to be paid for by the HA. They wouldn't need to repair every year but may be building up a fund to pay for the future resurfacing. They should however provide accounts to show the fund building up.

Disgruntled1967

Thanks all.

Mallotum the road will be adopted by the council later in the year when the last private house is sold.

It is so annoying that they just won't even reply to my emails now.

If they think that I am going to go away then they are sadly mistaken