Guinness Homes, Shared Ownership, Breach of Lease?

sofsofsof

hi, so i have had a letter thru saying they want a service charge of £10.10p per year for communal gardening/tree works and £1.52 for the mangement of this service.


No where in the Lease is it stated we have to pay a service charge, infact solicitor notes there is no formal service charge requirements in the lease.


Our duties are to only pay the buildings insurance on top of the rent and to from time to time pay the management of the association no more then 4% of rent on demand. so there is no service charge legally stated.


If this is not accepted by them and they stick to their guns about suddenly adding this random service charge that has never before been added, then can we do something about this? they are in breach of lease?


Please note the estate is either private owned or shared ownership, there are no communal areas or gardens as all homes here are houses and not flats.

stator

Post the exact wording of the 4% charge

EssexGirl

Sounds like a bargain to me! I wouldn't argue. People would soon complain if the communal areas weren't kept.

AnotherJoe

and to from time to time pay the management of the association no more then 4% of rent on demand.

I presume that the amounts of £10.10 and £1.52 per year fall well with the 4% of rent "on demand" ?

So I'm not understanding your complaint.

NeilCr

When you say there are no communal areas are you saying there are no trees, plants etc on the parts of the estate which aren't owned by the houses. I live on a private estate (mix of flats and houses) in a house and we have some lovely trees and plants on the walkways between the houses and on the road. These are maintained by a gardener who we all (houses and flats) pay

EssexGirl

You should be in possession of your Guinness home owners handbook. There's explanations of charges in there.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://resources.guinnesspartnership.com.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/the-guinness-partnership-homeowner-handbook.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjynIu8pNTgAhUSuHEKHUnODpsQFjAGegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw0uHCzgDFgGug_5Yvf_PXo8

bouicca21

Why start a new thread?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5968327/delete

sofsofsof

stator wrote: »

Post the exact wording of the 4% charge

on demand a share of the cost of the management of the association to be determined by the association but not to exceed an annual sum equal to 4 per centr of the gross rent from time to time.


the guinness book someone published says sometimes you pay this, well we never have, nor the guy before us. the 'communual' area just isnt like that everyone owns own drives, any tree issues (theres no trees near us) dealt with by actual council not these people.
I dont think you can just decide there will suddenly be a service charge of this nature (and in future and its more future im concerned with) that isnt set out in the lease legal document, they have to obide by this surely? because they could decide oh rent calculation is now different. I want to make sure and understand if this is forcefully applied, (i think it will be figured its a mistake as when on phone they couldnt understand what we was talking about), it is technically a breach of lease? it says online that any service charges HAVE to be writen in the lease in order to be applied to us.


I also note our lease even says we should only pay a reasonable proportion of the maintainance of the property also.


And too add, Guinness bought the Freehold off our actual council so this lease wasnt originally writen by them either (i expect had they writen it it would be a lot worse for us considering how they are!)


I thank everyone for their responses and look forward to hearing more and i know it is not a lot of money but we just dont pay this usually and its the future i am more concerned over and the randomness of these charges and how they could change!
Our lease states we must pay rent and buildings insurance only monthly not that and a communal or any type of service charge like the nature of a block of flats.

00ec25

why the second thread on the same subject?
you are exposed to paying up to 4%.
you just got a bill under that amount
live with it.

stator

You say the service charge isn't in the lease, so where is this 4% clause coming from?


How much is your annual rent?

sofsofsof

stator wrote: »

You say the service charge isn't in the lease, so where is this 4% clause coming from?


How much is your annual rent?

i can see it in the lease this management clause i have nooo idea what this is at all. Our solicitor states outright there are no formal service charges in the lease.
the bill they sent us is for estate maintainance so in essence a service charge of which we are not (atleast as writen in lease) liable to have to pay, and to be honest based on how this area works that makes sense. having read what this charge is for its for tree surveys in the common area and maintainance to keep them safe. Well we dont have a common area, if there are any issues with land outside this area we go to council not them, as it isnt their land or ours. (theres never been problems). however when i did have a issue with 1 tree (i wrote to council about this), they replied saying because its on someones car space it is their responsibility not ours, basically nothing in our area is maintained by any one but the owners. There are 10 houses in a row, this is our "estate" we look out upon a field/playing area owned by the council. Again nothing from them is maintained by them. There was that 1 tree, but that 1 tree the owner of the car space dealt with (she owns her own home outright).


And to add, when we phonend them up they said "you dont have any communal gardens"? and seemed shocked that we didnt. I dont know what they have done here but the relevent team wasnt available to speak to at the time. To be honest they are very incompetant and we have had times where they have writen us a letter to our address to quote a different address / area etc etc in that letter (i mean over 100 miles away)