Garden Maintenance - Leased Flat

sophiestephenson

Hello,

We own a flat in a block of 7 to which each flat pays £450 in service charge and ground rent every 6 months. This includes maintenance of the garden and landscape areas.

we have had the property, from new, for 18 months. The garden and landscape has significantly declined compared to what we originally purchased. I have complained, 12 months ago and more recently however they are just passing us off and avoiding fixing the issues.

Does anyone have any experience with this and have any advise on how to tackle it?
We are a ground floor flat and use the garden regularly and it is so frustrating to see if go to ruin when we pay so much for its upkeep.

Thanks

Socajam

I would get in touch with the other 6 owners and arrange a meeting to address the issues you pointed out.
Then write a letter outlining all the problems and asking for a meeting, get everyone to sign the letter, mail signature required to the management company.
I would give them 10 days to respond, to arrange a meeting with all the homeowners so that all the pressing issues can be put on the table.
Not sure if you have regular meetings, but going forward I would ask to meet every 3 months

stragglebod

Less than £1k a year for maintenance and rent is not very much, £6300 a year between 7 flats won't go very far at all.


It's highly likely that spending on the garden won't have too high a priority.

Fire_Fox

Welcome to MSE.

You have complained to whom and how?

Always complain in writing, be specific about what aspects of the landscaping have deteriorated, refer to the relevant section of any maintenance contracts and/ or the relevant section of your long lease.

Depending what the £900 per annum charge covers, your service charge may be reasonable or you may be underpaying. There are no economies of scale in managing small blocks.

Do read the 'Summary of Rights and Obligations' that is included with your service charge demands. Inspect the annual accounts and, if necessary, the invoices.

benjus

We pay just over £2100 per year to have someone do basic maintenance on a communal garden of around a fifth of an acre. Really just cutting the grass, trimming hedges etc and generally tidying up, but it keeps it looking nice. Some of us have started planting a few of the borders to make it look a bit prettier, but we do this at our own expense and look after it ourselves.

If you have a useless management company then the best long term solution is probably to exercise Right to Manage (RTM). You'll need agreement from at least some of the other leaseholders - see this page for more details: https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/right-manage/

Someone would also need to be prepared to get involved and actually organize everything, including doing the paperwork for the management company. Or you could simply appoint a management company of your choice to replace the current one, but personally I think self management is much better.