New build service charges

AJ84

Hi all,

Following on from my parking thread, another pointer in the letter was service charges.

So those who do not know, new build with a fairly clear divide of private houses and social houses although behind our house (private) are a row of social housing which is not fun given how close the houses have been built!

Key issue here is in terms of vandalism - it seems on the social side there have been children damaging areas of the development such as gates to shared carpark, a playing area and so on.

The jist of the letter is if this keeps happening and keeps having to be repaired, the service charge simply goes up.
I don't know if social housing pay for service charges but assuming they do not, this should go through the wall for private houses if damage is constantly caused by residents who clearly are not controlling their kids.

Is there something we can raise in terms of almost dividing the development in regards to charges?
The private side have all looked after their side with no repairs / charges incurring in 2 years but essentially this penalises us all for something we are not responsible for.

With council tax being £2200 and service charge £500 per annum, this could very quickly spiral out of control

Curious to hear your thoughts

Thanks

Silvertabby

Is this something new? We bought our new build in the early 1990s, and have never paid any service charges. The builders maintained the public areas/grass verges until the estate was finished, then the local council took over the responsibilty.

davidmcn

Silvertabby wrote: »

Is this something new? We bought our new build in the early 1990s, and have never paid any service charges. The builders maintained the public areas/grass verges until the estate was finished, then the local council took over the responsibilty.

Not particularly new. Councils these days will rarely want to take over maintenance of common areas.

In answer to the OP, you can't really opt out of service charge items without the agreement of those who would be taking on your share of the costs. If you can somehow persuade everyone involved to reach a consensus then yes it can be varied, but that doesn't sounds realistic.

AJ84

I think service charge / ground charge/maintenance charge or whatever the individuals call it is the norm for new builds now.
Similar to you - the developers maintained for 2 years and then once the plots all completed, Thames Valley Housing have taken over who I will say are useless.

For the charges we pay EACH (assuming social housing pay thats 350+ houses) so potentially £157,000 per annum, I cannot believe how little they actually do.
Most of the time all we see is someone with a blower blowing leaves, collecting them, a quick 20min mow and they then sit in the van and eat or wipe the van panels down.
I have CCTV that covers the entire house outside and often we're at work amused at how little they actually do.

But it's part of the contract when we bought the house...and we accept this, just not if the charges are creeping up because irresponsible brats are damaging the areas

PasturesNew

If the management company have the right to charge everybody for damage to be repaired.... then I'd have thought they'd also have the power to sue for damages from those causing them.

Maybe you and like-minded neighbours need to find a way to provide evidence of damage being caused. And maybe go en-masse to bang on the doors of the adults who allow and enable this anti-social nuisance to occur and say "Oi, no!"... although that's the hard bit.

Where I live there are NO communal areas. Not a single inch of land is public/communal ... and still the screaming, unsupervised, brats romp fearlessly across it.

Silvertabby

I think service charge / ground charge/maintenance charge or whatever the individuals call it is the norm for new builds now.
Similar to you - the developers maintained for 2 years and then once the plots all completed, Thames Valley Housing have taken over who I will say are useless.

Interesting - we have no intentions to move, but something to consider if we do.

In our case, it's actually the council who now maintain our estate, as we are all private - the rules stating that a percentage of new homes must be housing association came in shortly after the final estate plans were confirmed.

I'm going to be slated for saying this, but the average house price on our estate is over £10K higher than similar houses on newer estates with a joint housing policy.

AJ84

Evidence would work but again I think the biggest issue is the issues are not apparant on our side. Think of it as a one long road with branches of cul-de-sacs ... we're in one cul-de-sac with private houses...that entire road of 30 or whatever it is houses have no issues with damage.

Follow the main road and then the social side starts...thats where the issue starts- something we do not see, hear or even know about until letters like these arrive.

Only once have we had an issue and this was really early on where some kids climbed the fences bordering a country lane on the other side...they then broke it.
I caught it on cctv and told them about it but it simply got fixed and nothing was done in terms of identifying in at the time would have been hugely easy to do given only 50 odd houses were occupied. And we knew it was no one our side as at that time, only 6 houses on our side were occupied - none with kids

BorisThomson

PasturesNew wrote: »

If the management company have the right to charge everybody for damage to be repaired.... then I'd have thought they'd also have the power to sue for damages from those causing them.

Maybe you and like-minded neighbours need to find a way to provide evidence of damage being caused. And maybe go en-masse to bang on the doors of the adults who allow and enable this anti-social nuisance to occur and say "Oi, no!"... although that's the hard bit.

Where I live there are NO communal areas. Not a single inch of land is public/communal ... and still the screaming, unsupervised, brats romp fearlessly across it.

The problem with that is that the cost of litigation would be passed to the home owners. The management company will seize any opportunity to make more money!

dannyrst

AJ84 wrote: »

I have CCTV that covers the entire house outside and often we're at work amused at how little they actually do.

You watch them not working, whilst you're at work...not working?

AJ84

dannyrst wrote: »

You watch them not working, whilst you're at work...not working?

ha! nice try but no...it's set to email on motion and usually goes off when they're moving about.
It's a very quiet corner we are in so it's a case of nothing for 7 hours and then the 1 hour they're there, I get an email with a snapshot of the motion every few minutes

emmiebelle

Speak to the managing agent.

I work for one, producing service charges and i always ensure if the HA cause the problems their schedule picks it up.

You are entitled to see invoices at the managing agents office at your own expense, but you can double check how they have accounted for it.