Management pack when selling

Lwheatley16 · 15 January 2019 at 11:30AM

Hi everybody,

Myself and my boyfriend are in the process of buying our second property. It’s been a long process however we had confirmation from our solicitor that she was going to send out the contracts for us to sign today. We have just received an e-mail from her saying that the buyers solicitors have just come to her with an enquiry regarding a second management pack so she needs to hold off sending contracts and find out the charge for us. We have already paid £350 for a management pack? I don’t understand they have had 4 months to make enquiries and why now suddenly this has come up. Has anybody ever heard of a second management pack before? I’m really not happy paying for another one!!!! Any advice please? Thank you in advance

hazyjo · 15 January 2019 at 11:41AM

It is usually something that has to be done near the end (so the info contained therein is up to date, and they can say what you've paid). And yes, the seller usually pays. Some charge £250, others more like £750. Part and parcel with selling leasehold unfortunately. No idea why you have to pay for two - they obviously forgot something. You need to find out if it should have been included in the first one, or if it's something entirely different like something separate for garages or the like which had to be done separately.

Lwheatley16 · 15 January 2019 at 12:06PM

Thank you. Yes we paid £350 back in October and they said they didn’t have any enquiries and now suddenly they are saying we may have to pay for another one. This is why I’m so frustrated!

hazyjo · 15 January 2019 at 12:12PM

Might just be the final accounts to say you're up to date and there's nothing extra planned since they last asked. Dunno why they didn't just do it a bit later in the first place. Maybe because sometimes they can slow things down and take weeks. Maybe it's how the management company works, or maybe your solicitor. Perhaps it's easier to get all the pack earlier and then just a few lines saying 'all paid, nothing else to be billed'.

Only guessing mind!

Tiglet2 · 15 January 2019 at 12:35PM

Sounds like you have one management company responsible for collecting service charges and another collecting the ground rent (i.e. freeholder/landlord or another company). This is fairly common unfortunately, but the solicitor doesn't find out until the first management pack is reviewed and some questions are unanswered because it is the responsibility of somebody else! I'm a conveyancing assistant so see this a lot!