New Estate - Management Charges - getting council to adopt

lazer-zxr

As with many new estates, we are subject to a management charge (ours is circa £300 / anum).
This covers grass cutting, fence maintenance, lighting repairs etc.

I know this was agreed when we moved in, and its within the legal documents with the house.

What feels unfair, is that we pay 100% council tax, the same as other estates within our town, but they get all of their facilities maintained within that.

I'd like to investigate getting the council to adopt our public areas, and negate the need for a management company.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Or advice?

tootiemac

A few questions first:
1. Does your management fee for grass cutting cover the cutting of your personal grass or just public grass?
2. Fence maintenance again your fence or public fences?

lazer-zxr

tootiemac wrote: »

A few questions first:
1. Does your management fee for grass cutting cover the cutting of your personal grass or just public grass?
2. Fence maintenance again your fence or public fences?

The maintenance company only maintains "public" areas. The estate is very big 670 houses in total.

The roads are adopted by the council, it is just the maintenance of some public grounds (grass by the roadside with trees on it, fencing around little car park area etc.

tootiemac

Ah OK just checking, I know some cut communal grass like shared back gardens etc.

Getting the council to adopt roads is one thing grass and lighting is another. your asking them to take on a spending they currently don't have.

If someone came to you and asked you to take on a large expenditure that their currently paying for, lets say the reverse of this would you do it?

yes you still pay council tax at 100% but you still get every other service.

plus my council cuts the grass at our public area only after its almost knee height i expect the management company do ti more regularly.

davidmcn

lazer-zxr wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience of this? Or advice?

Don't waste your time - it's a perfectly normal scenario for modern estates and the council aren't likely to take over.

Council tax isn't a fee for services rendered, it's just a tax - you don't get a rebate on your Income Tax because you didn't use a hospital last year...

lazer-zxr

tootiemac wrote: »

Getting the council to adopt roads is one thing grass and lighting is another. your asking them to take on a spending they currently don't have.

Yes, it will be additional cost, but maybe this could be funded by a minimal increase in council tax shared out across the whole borough? After all, I'm currently paying for the maintenance of public spaces in other areas of the town.

tootiemac wrote: »

If someone came to you and asked you to take on a large expenditure that their currently paying for, lets say the reverse of this would you do it?
yes you still pay council tax at 100% but you still get every other service.

But I don't enjoy 100% same level of the service that other areas do where the public spaces are maintained by the council.
Just feels like as we pay the same fees, we should get the same benefits?

tootiemac wrote: »

plus my council cuts the grass at our public area only after its almost knee height i expect the management company do ti more regularly.

hmmmm... not really, they're part of the knee height brigade aswell.

Thanks for your comments though.

cattie

Where I live all the actual grounds & access roads to garages are responsibility collectively of owners & we pay service charges for this (a lot more than the £300 per yr that you currently pay). But the road that actually leads into our development, which has a street name, is maintained by the council, which includes any street lights situated on it.

I don't think there is anyway you can force a council to take over responsibility for your communal areas & really £300 per yr for the maintenance is a pretty small amount compared to what some residents need to pay on some developments. The communal areas will either be owned collectively by all owners, or held on a lease by the property developers.

Davesnave

lazer-zxr wrote: »

What feels unfair, is that we pay 100% council tax, the same as other estates within our town, but they get all of their facilities maintained within that.

That sounds like a good reason to buy one of those houses, rather than yours, but you made the choice to go with this unfair arrangement.

Presumably, this was because you wanted that house, not one somewhere else.

da_rule

The council won't be interested in adopting the communal grounds and appliances. At a time when they are having to make savings they will not want to be taking on more liabilities when they do not have to. You would probably find as well that the council not being responsible for maintaining such areas was one of the clauses when planning permission was granted.

moneyistooshorttomention

lazer-zxr wrote: »

The maintenance company only maintains "public" areas. The estate is very big 670 houses in total.

The roads are adopted by the council, it is just the maintenance of some public grounds (grass by the roadside with trees on it, fencing around little car park area etc.

Crikey. 670 x £300 per house = £201,000 pa or £3,865.38 per week.

Nice little earner for someone then:cool:. There's no way it could cost that much for that little work surely?

Is there any way you could all take this maintenance over yourselves? Dont know if the law yet forces these companies to hand over maintenance contracts to residents? I'd have thought £100 per week split between the 670 houses involved (ie pennies each) would be a more realistic level of charge.

martinsurrey

lazer-zxr wrote: »

But I don't enjoy 100% same level of the service that other areas do where the public spaces are maintained by the council.
Just feels like as we pay the same fees, we should get the same benefits?

You do get the same benefits, you pay them to maintain their land, and they do.

They don't own the land on your estate, so don't look after it. By a similar nature, if the council wanted to tarmac over a park in another area they could, but they cant in yours as they don't own it.

If the council told you that they would look after it, but each and every house would have to pay £6,000 for them to take ownership of the land, and they would make no guarantee that they would even keep it Green, would you do it?