Extortionate admin charges by property management company

enthusiasticsaver

Has anyone else had any experience of high administration charges by property management company when selling leasehold properties? We are in the process of selling a leasehold flat in Coventry which has OM Management Company (previously Peverel) as the managing agents. So far we have paid £268.80 for a leasehold management pack and then a further £134.40 for additional queries raised by the buyers solicitors. I have emailed them asking for a note of their standard admin charges for dealing with queries on sale but on past form do not expect to get an answer for some time if at all!! We will probably end up paying them more than our solicitor in the end particularly if they have further charges to impose. They do have us over a barrel though as obviously we want to sell so do not have a choice.

tomtontom

Not specific to selling, but Peverel are well known for their extortionate charges. No harm in putting in a complaint, I regularly get my fees reduced by doing so. Keep in mind you will have already paid a hefty management fee to them this year, which in mind should cover admin costs.

glottalstop

Some of the charges will be for the freeholder and some for OM themselves. You are absolutely not alone.

My conveyancer is helping me to remortage, so I'm not even transferring the lease, but the charges are awful. The conveyancing fee itself jumped from £650 to £830 as soon as the solicitor discovered they would have to deal with OM / Proxima / E&M due to a restriction which the landlord has on the title - it basically says "I am the freeholder so no-one deals with any property on my land without my permission".

Since then I have been asked for an extra £60 for the freeholder's agent to confirm that ground rent is fully paid up; £48 for the manager to ask the agent whether they will "consent" to the re-mortgage; and £90 for the manager to say that service charges are paid up. If I was selling the info pack would be up to £350, depending on whether there is a prescribed format for the information.

OM should have an annex to their management agreement which sets out their charges for all these admin tasks, which are extra to the lease, and should provide you with a copy of it on request. If not report them to their trade body ARMA since this is grounds for them to be de-regulated.

Definitely insist on explanation and account of all the charges. Despite your shock at the figures these days the admin charges are usually limited to what would be considered reasonable in a tribunal hearing; but if you are sure you have been ripped off then you might apply for them to be assessed (at the risk of being found wrong and then walloped with costs). There is a section of the government LEASE website lease-advice.org dedicated to case histories of tribunals on admin charges.

Or you can just fume and chalk this up to the stupidity of leasehold, and so join the 4.3 million private leaseholders ripped off in similar ways.