Unusual High Fees from leashold companies

krippo

Hi guys!


I owned apartment in the flat complex, and I have a problem with the company who is administrating whole building, they charged high fees for everything like registrating dog: 42 GBP, renting out your OWN apartment another fee etc. is it even legal?


Best Regards

need_an_answer

The fees you quote are standard type fees.

Just to put some perspective here I too own a leasehold and charges for pet consent are £80 and consent to let £120 for a single tenancy or I can opt for a 5 year global one with unlimited tenants at £450.

however these are all things that you could/should have queried during the purchase of the property and if you felt too high or illegal why did you carry onwards with the purchase?

in comparison your charges look quite good!

eddddy

krippo wrote: »

I owned apartment in the flat complex, and I have a problem with the company who is administrating whole building, they charged high fees for everything like registrating dog: 42 GBP, renting out your OWN apartment another fee etc. is it even legal?

Does your lease say that you need the freeholder's consent to keep a dog?

If it does, the freeholder can charge you a reasonable fee for granting consent (and £42 sounds like a reasonable fee).

If the lease doesn't say that you need consent to keep a dog, you don't have to ask for consent, and therefore you don't have to pay a fee.


The same with renting out your apartment. Does the lease say that you need the freeholder's consent? (Leases usually do.)

davidmcn

£42 sounds like an unusually low fee for anything, really. How much did you expect them to charge?

eddddy

davidmcn wrote: »

£42 sounds like an unusually low fee for anything, really. How much did you expect them to charge?

Spoken like a true solicitor...!

In fact, in 2011 the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) decided that £40+vat was a reasonable charge for a freeholder to charge some leaseholders for consent to let. So £42 seems roughly in line with that.

As I recall, it was based on rate of £50 per hour for an admin person, who had to read a letter, type some details into a database - and generate a standard letter and post it.

I'd guess that a similar amount of work is involved in granting consent to keep a pet.

The details of that decision can be downloaded here: http://landschamber.decisions.tribunals.gov.uk//Aspx/view.aspx?id=823

krippo

davidmcn wrote: »

£42 sounds like an unusually low fee for anything, really. How much did you expect them to charge?

I thought 42 GBP for 5 minutes is little bit too much, but I guess you are right.

AlexMac

Which is why I don't buy flats where there is a profit-driven absentee leaseholder; after all, what else are they for but to deliver profit?

I go for so-called "shared freeholds"; as these are in effect mutual or non profit Companies where the owners control (and ideally, where we self-manage things like accounts, commissioning repairs, insuring, Companies House returns, leagal and conveyancing enquiries, etc, none of which are rocket science meriting fat fees by grasping freeholders or ther agents).

But the type of tenure you buy is your choice (subject to advice by your own conveyancing solicitor at the time you buy)

Slithery

Not unusual at all and not high either.

eddddy

krippo wrote: »

I thought 42 GBP for 5 minutes is little bit too much, but I guess you are right.

If you genuinely feel that £42 is unreasonable, you can pay it under protest and challenge it at a tribunal.

The tribunal fee is £100, but the tribunal would probably order the freeholder to pay that back to you, if they agreed with you.


But just to double check, as I asked above... does your lease say that you need consent to keep a dog?