estate management fee advice!

rhianne1434

I've been searching the internet for advice on estate management fees but without joy so im throwing the question out here!!!

I live on a new build estate with around 140 houses. Each house has to pay an estate management fee, mine being around £220 a year, but it starts at around £150.

I want to know if theres ever hope in the future to get rid of the company completely and have the road/path managed by highways and the small green area managed by the council.

Has anyone ever had any success challenging these companies? Our is Chamonix and i've seen a site where someone has won a refund from them but nothing about getting rid of them completely...

Thanks in advance

MadelinesMum

I live on a new estate and pay £215 per year. The roads were taken over by the council just over a year ago but I still have to pay the full amount. I know a few people on the estate refuse to pay but there is a clause if you ever sell the house the payments have to be up to date.

rhianne1434

Yeah there's quite a few on the estate that aren't paying as there's a lot of questions outstanding that the company aren't answering which I agree with, they seem pretty useless so far

phill99

Years ago, a council would adopt both th roads and other areas like open spaces, verges, planted areas and obviously maintain them at public expense.

Now, due to budget restrictions, councils will only adopt the roads. The verges, open areas etc have to be maintained by the local residents. No katter how hard you try the council wont adopt these areas as they then have to fork out money that they don't have to maintain them.


Even if they did take them over, they maintain these ateas so badly now, that you will be doing yourself an injustice. My mother is in the same situation and they have a gardening company come and look after the open spaces and every one is happy with the situation.

Its only costing you less than 50p a week!

rhianne1434

It's over £4 a week, not 50p and its paying £220 lump sum which is rather not do as they add higher fees for paying direct debit. I think it's fair that I'd rather not pay it than pay it, can't blame me?!

Pete9501

We have just sold our house on an estate with 180 houses. The builders handed over to a ltd company with owners as directors and we employed a management company to do the day to day stuff and collect the service charges from both free hold houses with covenants to ensure payment and leasehold flats. We sold because the service charges for maintenance, water, bldgs insurance and estate maintenance like gardening and roads hit £2400 a year.

Don't think we could have got the roads adopted by the council because the original planning agreements said to remain private and they were not up to RTA specs apparently.

Suggest you get together with other owners and form a limited company to manage the estate and employ a MA to do the routine business.

If service charges are not being paid then there is no money in the pot to pay for maintenance and that can really go down hill quickly. We had a process in place so that 21 days after non payment, snotty letter sent by MA and interest added. 42 days second snotty letter and solicitors instructed and the owners expense. It was the only way to keep debts down to less than 2% of turnover. Harsh but meant the estate had funds to do the work needed.

rhianne1434

That's really helpful advice, thanks, there's been discussion about us taking over management but we were worried about how much hassle it would be. I'm concerned that over the years the fees will go up and up which i know others have experienced. Might have to look a bit more in to doing it ourselves

bclark

We live on a new estate and have just sacked our management company and replaced them with a new one. There isn't really much hope of getting the council to adopt it all as they don't have the budget anymore.

We were all unhappy about the value for money we were getting from our company and the money that the house owners were having to pay each year when really it was only to maintain a few green areas.

I wasn't directly involved in the process but it seemed quite easy and now we have fairer charges, a more proactive company and no silly extras like a charge for building a conservatory or remortgaging.