Freeholder rip-off, hunting for information to fight them

chaupt

Hi,



I have a leasehold flat and I am having an increasing number of issues with my freeholder who is a housing association. I feel they should not be allowed to do what they are doing but I am struggling to track down the appropriate laws or rulings to stop them and would appreciate any advice or help on what I can and should do.


As is usual the housing association acts as the management company and provide caretaking and repairs to the property of 44 flats.


When I bough the leasehold we had a dedicated caretaker and we have a very large caretaking area (large break room, bathroom, shower, storage) that the caretaker used. The caretaker used to look after another block of flats, a few houses down from us as well, walking between the two.



The caretaking was costly but despite some rather poorly behaved tenants relatively well maintained. The caretaker was then removed, and our caretaking area became what they call a “Caretaking Hub” for a lot of the properties in the area. The quality of the caretaking itself collapsed despite no change in charges.


We now have a stream of vehicles in and out of the property all day picking up items for different properties and we have their vehicles being serviced in the parking area as well.


Despite these changes, increased traffic, increased use of services and increased use of parking the freeholder continues to charge us, the residents for all services used by them. In recent weeks they have decided to change the parking rules, without consultation and reduce our parking rights. Where it was strictly first come first served (confirmed by my solicitor at the time of purchase) it will now be a single permit per household, they of course face no limits. They are also bringing in PCM to manage the parking, PCM featured on the BBC’s watchdog program with undercover filming catching them talking about how they make things up when dealing with complaints.


The parking area itself is underutilised on evenings and weekends when we used to be able to have visitors, now nobody who drives can park without the risk of being invoiced by PCM.


It appears to me that we are subsidising their caretaking and repair business through the service charges we pay, losing parking rights so they can bring in more vehicles and living with the increased noise and traffic from these changes.


It is hard to believe that they can do this however when I enquired with them I was told that as we derived benefit from the caretaking they do not have to pay anything towards services and that they can change the parking rules as they please.


Any help on where to go for the relevant information would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance,
Craig

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property/leasehold-disputes

https://www.gov.uk/housing-tribunals

chaupt

I appreciate the links and have a few ideas of where to go myself, what I am struggling to locate is any examples where a Freeholder has had action taken against them for setting up and running a business prejudicing leaseholders in the process.

I have tried a number of search combinations but the recent scandals around leasehold rent increases means I cannot identify a specific enough search term to get meaningful results.

Anywhere where the rules around what a Freeholder can and cannot do or change would also be appreciated.

NeilCr

Do you get a breakdown of your service charges?

In terms of changing the parking rules I think that is going to be dependent on what it says in your lease. You may want to post on the motoring and parking forum as there is a lot of knowledge there about these issues. At least have a read of a few of the threads. Speaking as a director of our freehold estate I can only say that parking problems are one of our biggest area of complaints from residents - both for and against certain proposals!

anselld

chaupt wrote: »

Anywhere where the rules around what a Freeholder can and cannot do or change would also be appreciated.

There are no universal rules. What the Freeholder can and cannot do/change is dictated by the terms of the Lease. So in the first instance read the Lease and understand what, if any, terms the Freeholder are in breach of.

G_M

chaupt wrote: »

..... .....
Anywhere where the rules around what a Freeholder can and cannot do or change would also be appreciated.

It is in your lease.

AdrianC

At the end of the day, it's their land, and their car park - and they're free to do as they wish with it, so long as it doesn't infringe on your lease.



Your lease specifies exactly what they must provide you with, and what you need to do. Anything above that is by mutual agreement and, unless you have a written contract specifying it, not legally enforceable.

InterestedParty2018

I can only reiterate what others have already said.

Your lease will define what you and the Freeholder are obligated to do (or not permitted to do), and what you have to contribute towards in terms of service charge.

You would need to establish what clause/covenant they are breaching (if they are) in order to take further action.

A couple of questions to start:
- Does the lease say that a caretaker service must be provided?
- Did you previously share caretaker costs with the other building (ie wages cost)
- Do you get annual accounts? It would be interesting to see if the expenditure relating to the caretaker category reduced when the service was reduced. (you may have not seen an overall decrease if other categories increased significantly.)
- I am not entirely clear on who is doing vehicle repairs?
- Car parking is always a difficult one, and with changes in society, it is very difficult to reach a solution which is agreed by all. Sadly if some people (visitors, commuters, residents) are abusing the parking facilities, then it is not unreasonable for a freeholder to implement something to deal with this.

daveyjp

Check the lease about car parking. It may not permit the freeholder to introduce a parking scamming company.

Private tickets board has lots of advice.