Section 20 on a leasehold flat

mc2705

Apologies for the long post but I want to give as much information as possible.

I live in a flat in England. The building has a shop on the ground floor, my flat is on the 1st floor and there is another flat on the 2nd floor.

New tenants took over the shop last year and they discovered that there was a lot of work that needed doing. The lady in the flat upstairs was told by the landlords that this shouldn't effect us as it was purely a shop matter. Then things have gotten frightening, annoying and frustrating!

A basic timeline of events is as follows:

7 March 2014: I recieved a letter informing me of proposed works to the property. This enclosed a Section 20 Notice and gave me until 7 April 2014 to make observations. The letter was not clear at all what work was proposed, it appeared to mention urgent repairs to a basement, the ground floor shop and external areas in one paragraph and then went on to mention the cost of roofing works in another paragraph. I emailed some queries to the landlords to get more details of what was actually proposed. I emailed them on 11 March 2014 with my queries and then reminded for a reply on 14 March and 17 March. I received a response on 17 March 2014, this email thanked me for my emails, said that they were busy carrying out site inspections and that I would receive a reply within a few days. I did not receive a reply and so emailed again on 31 March 2014 asking if I was likely to get any answers and I never heard back. I gave up at this point.

17 November 2014: I recieved an invoice for services charges that were much higher than the amount I was used to paying and so I emailed the landlords to query this. My original email was sent on 25 November 2014 and I recieved no reply. I therefore reminded on 1 December, 3 December and 8 December 2014 and had no reply at all, not even an acknowledgement.

11 December 2014: I recieved an email with the attachment of a letter from the landlords regarding major works that were carried out. One of the pages of this was an invoice for my share of the building works that were carried out as part of the Section 20 notice that were sent out in March 2014. I immediately e-mailed them back asking what was going on and informing them that although Stage One of the Section 20 had been carried out, I had never recieved anything to do with Stage Two (statement of estimates) or Stage Three (notice of reasons). I never recieved a reply.

19 December 2014: After checking around online I discovered that as they had not followed the correct procedures neither myself or the lady upstairs should be liable for any more than £250. I therefore paid this to the landlords and emailed them to inform them that they had not followed the procedures and as such I had paid them my £250 contribution to the works.

Over the next month or so I continued to email them to try and get some sort of reply and the lady upstairs was telephoning them (she never got a proper answer just that they were "looking at it").

On 27 April I sent the landlords a letter enclosing copies of all of the emails and documents that I had and told them that as I had not heard from them I was assuming that they accepted my £250 contribution and that I would not hear from them on the matter further.

While all this was going on, I have not recieved any service charge invoices from them at all. Usually these would come every three months, but we have had nothing since the one on 17 November 2014 that I queried and never recieved a reply.

Today I have had a chat with the lady upstairs as she has telephoned them to see what was going on. She has now been told that they did send out the Stage Two of the Section 20 consultation (this was not recieved by either of us) and that they would be writing to us shortly to request payment for the building works.

She had an argument with them and was told various excuses such as the landlords offices had had a flood, they couldn't find paperwork etc. They then told her that they had a photocopy of the Stage Two notification and that a copy of this would be enclosed with the letter they are preparing to send out. They said that they will be demanding payment and if not recieved they will be seeking to recover the debt!

They say they sent the Stage Two of the Section 20 out (today was the first time they have even said that!) but we are convinced that they are lying as it seems unlikely that two separate letters would have been lost in the post!

The letters that they have sent appear to be riddled with errors, at one point they were telling us that the roof needed repair (it never has been to my knowledge), then the basement needed work to stop flooding (this appears to have been the actual work carried out).

The lady upstairs is planning to go the Citizens Advice Bureau to seek their advice but I thought I would also try on here to see if anybody had any experience with matters like this.

Do we have any legal rights that will protect us in situations like this? Is there any chance that we have done something wrong or are we correct to refuse to pay them?

Edit:

Just to clarify, both myself and the lady upstairs "own" our flats on a 125 year leasehold and the landlords are a property management company.

Thank you in advance for any help or advice that you might be able to give.

OBIWAN

Hi, contact the Leasehold Advisory Service;


http://www.lease-advice.org/


They're a government funded body that give free advice on leasehold matters. I've used them a few times and they'll give you the answers you need. Their website is also full of info on section20 procedure.
On a side note, have you considered Right to Manage? We exercised our right in 2013 for our building of 49 flats and WE now control the management of our building. We've employed a managing agent of our choosing (although if it's a small building you probably wont need one), we decide what work needs doing, which contractors are appointed, etc. Its a relatively easy process and you only need a majority of leaseholders to agree - yourself and your neighbour upstairs.

mc2705

Thanks Obiwan, I will check out the lease advice site.

I think the only issue with right to manage is that the lady upstairs is thinking of selling and I will be looking at selling in about a years time. If I was planning to be here long term, I would be looking at cutting the landlords out altogether!

Thanks again.