Landlord charging £14,000 to leaseholders

Ginger_Winner

I am a leaseholder of a flat within a block in Wembley. The landlord for the block is Brent Council. I and my fellow leaseholders have recently received a Bill for just under £4,000 each for essential fire maintenance work. Three months later we have received details of forthcoming cyclical work for which we will be charged between £10,000 - £11,500 each which will be due in December 2018. This will be in addition to our annual service charge which is usually between £700 and £1000 a year.

Clearly these sums of money are huge and represent considerable challenges and have caused distress for all leaseholders. We have a number of concerns but don’t really know what our rights are. The concerns we have are as follows:

- We are not consulted on this work, but just informed that it is happening.

- We don’t feel that there is anyone ‘fighting our corner’ in terms of price when this work is being quoted for. The prices seem very high and approximately 30% of the cost is admin fees.

- When work is carried out, it doesn’t feel like it’s done efficiently e.g. scaffolding is often left up for weeks on end without any work being carried out.

- There are conflicts of interest when assessing the work i.e. the person who makes the decision as to what needs to be done is paid a percentage commission on the cost of the work.

- When work has been done in the past I have been asked to sign a form without filling it in. I subsequently found out that this was a feedback form that they were going to fill in on my behalf.

When we approach Brent Council, they become very defensive and provide a long bureaucratic reply talking about their process, health and safety, etc and show no empathy for the lease holders position.

The reason for this post is to see if anyone can advise us on our rights regarding this issues or indeed if they have faced similar issues and can maybe help us in a few pointers, so that we can improve this situation ongoing.

Rosemary7391

You might find this website helpful:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/leasehold-advisory-service

You might also want to ask for this thread to be moved to the housing board a wee bit further up - I think you'll find plenty of knowledgeable folk up there

Ginger_Winner wrote: »

- When work has been done in the past I have been asked to sign a form without filling it in. I subsequently found out that this was a feedback form that they were going to fill in on my behalf.

Don't sign blank forms! :eek:

SuperHan

Being a leaseholder myself, there isn't a massive amount you can do. The landlord has to keep the building in good repair, you have to pay for it.

Although I can't remember off the top of my head, there are some concessions for spend that exceeds £10k or similar in any 12 month period and I think this means the landlord has to consult with leaseholders first.

It may not be relevant in your situation but it is a path that is worth exploring and researching further to see if it does.

wealdroam

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

You might also want to ask for this thread to be moved to the housing board a wee bit further up - I think you'll find plenty of knowledgeable folk up there

The OP already has posted over there:

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5670536

This thread is a duplicate thread.

bris

In Scotland I went through 3 different statutory repair notices, each one costing a small fortune in Edinburgh. It was at the time when all the corruption came to light surrounding the notices.


Basically if you can't pay for it then they take a charge against your property. This isn't what you want as interest is also applied at the time of settlement or sale whatever is sooner. So if you can't pay then the interest can eat up all your equity.

Ginger_Winner

Many thanks for the comments... and yes I have posted it on the property page as well - I hope this isn't bad forum etiquette, apologies if it is.

I should also point out that of course I didn't sign the blank form, but I was disgusted that they asked me to do so. I also suspect that not everyone else would have challenged this as I did. It generally felt quite intimidating to be honest.

The current works have been notified to us via a section 20 notice and we have until the beginning of July to reply. The main reason for posting on here is to get an understanding as to what, if any, leverage we have.

Once again, thanks for your replies and links.

JJG

I would not be surprised if you will have a claim against the council. Especially if these essential fire maintence works are a result of them putting on flammable cladding in the first place. As the leaseholders are essentially being charge twice due to the illegal cladding in the first place.