Who is responsible?

jebervic

I bought a flat close too work last November to stay during the week, it has an annual service charge, the annual charge is due in July, well two weeks ago I had the bill for 2016-17 and a bill for the whole of 2015-2016.

I called the managing agents who said that I can pay by installments for the 2015-2016 and that I should contact my solicitors as they should have ensured the previous owners had paid for the period between July to November.

Am I liable?, my solictors? or the agents themselves?

Any advice welcome and appreciated

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Solicitors

They will have reported to you formally pre-exchange - have you read it ?

jebervic

Senior_Paper_Monitor wrote: »

Solicitors

They will have reported to you formally pre-exchange - have you read it ?

There was nothing in there about the owner paying for the period july to my purchase in November, but they did mention that they were requesting £120 retention for any extra service calls that might be made. I never gave it a thought at the time and I know I should, but I had one envelope at the end of the purchase with window guarantees and boiler safety certs etc, but DIDN't get a completion statement.

jebervic

from the pre exchange letter

We are obtaini ng confirmation from the sellers i n relation to the bu i l d i ng regu lations certificate for the boi ler and whether this requ ired land lord consent and also whether the windows requ i red land lord consent.
The Sellers are offering a £1 50 retention unt i l the year end accou n ts for the management com pany are prod uced.
We wou ld a lso draw your attention to the fact that there are planned future decoration and interna l works at the property. We wou ld note that the Management com pany service charges wi ll be l i kely to increase when the works are carried out and you wi ll be l iable for the payment of the sums demanded. We u nderstand that quotations have not yet been obtained for the decoration works or a date set but they believe the works to be approximately £2,000.
There i s also a quote i n place for renewin g carpets in the comm u na l areas. As stated above these works will be invoiced to the owners as property.

eddddy

Solicitors normally check this.

It's likely that your solicitor took this into account, and adjusted the amount you paid to the seller to account for the unpaid service charge. (i.e. you paid the seller a bit less, because you would eventually have to pay the service charge.)

So it would be correct for you to now pay that service charge.

But to be sure, you need to see a completion statement.

jebervic

just found my financial statement, from what I understand I have paid my proportion for last year?

jebervic

FINANCIAL STATEMENT

Client Name:
Matter Description:

Account No: EN/EN/JS40550-1

Expected Completion Date:


Items Receipts Payments
Mortgage Advance
Total Cash From Client
Purchase Price
Search Bundle
Land Registry Fee on Transfer
Chancel Liability Insurance
Land Registry search fee
Bankruptcy search fee
Our charges for Purchase
Our charges for Mortgage
Apportionment of service charges and ground rent
Notice for freeholder
Notice to Management company
Deed of Covenant
Certificate of compliance
Fixtures and fittings
Money in from client £98,970.00
£450.00














£13,353.80

£110,000.00
£429.00
£95.00
£60.00
£3.00
£2.00
£1,150.80
£234.00
£515.01
£120.00
£72.00
£48.00
£60.00
£400.00



Balance due from you £112,773.80
£113,188.81

(£112,773.80)

(£415.01)

G_M

From your Financial Statement:

Apportionment of service charges and ground rent

So the amount the sellers would be liable topay was taken into acount when you paid at completion.

You also said above "The Sellers are offering a £1 50 retention unt i l the year end accou n ts for the management com pany" so your soliitors should have this amount which can be used if necessary to pay for the period before you purchased.

jebervic

ok my financial statement has two columns

and the Apportionment of service charges and ground rent

this is shown as money they want from ME so I paid £515, so where has this money gone?

AlexMac

Difficult to understand your posts above as the cut n paste garbles the data; but, as I've owned several leasehold flats... any half competent solicitor acting for you should have:

-established how much the annual service charge has been for current and recent years, and what this covers (typically, insurance, communal lighting, any landscaping or estate roads, routine buildings maintenance and perhaps a contribution to a 'sinking fund' for major planned repairs, roofing or redecoration)

-ensured that the former owner had paid their share of the service charge for the part year up to when they sold to you (2015-16 implies their accountning year runs April-March),

- or if they had paid up front for the whole year as is common, that there was an adjustment in the final settlement, based on a calculation of the vendor's share/owings for the period up to your completion;calculated on a daily or weekly basis
- with an adjustment in the final settlement, so that you paid the vendor a % of the service charge if they had paid up front and were 'in credit'; or an adjustment your way if a bill was due and they paid in arrears... plus
- a 'retention' if (again as is usual) the service charge was based on an estimate for the year ahead, and typically (based on looking at recent years freehold company accounts), there had been a supplementary, end-year bill when the actual costs in the year exceeded the estimate. (not always bad news; I have sometimes had a credit when costs have been lower than the forecast)
- identified if there were any bills outstanding for one-off works or maintenance over and above the service charge; so you could, for example argue the price down if you were advised that the freeholder had issued the obligatory legal warning major works were planned or that a big bill was due.
- explained all this to you because that's what you pay them to do?

It does sound as if your solicitor, in talking about a 'retention' had done some of this; but if they have not explained it to you, or worse still, if you fear that you employed a carp solicitor who couldn't be 4rs3d, you should ask them to go over the detail again. And if you have been let down or ripped off because they forgot to check or forgot to inform you, you could invoke your solicitor's Complaints process (ask 'em what it is) and after that, go to the Law Society or whoever regulates them. (google it)

But it might just be that they did everything right and are poor communicators? Good luck; the service charges and maintenence bills might seem steep, but any leasehold flats we have owned have, over time, cost less to maintain than our own freehold houses!

TBagpuss

Chekc with your solicitor. Normally the service charge is apportined or there is a retention.
It's also possible that the apportionment was done and the service company has messed up the calculations, and is billing you despite having already been paid by the seller.