Leasehold reform proposals could save homeowners £1,000s - MSE News

Nlc

Not everyone has RTM.
Those that live in mixed use blocks dont have this right. The 25% commercial use rule exempts them from RTM.

Leasehold is feudal and must be ABOLISHED

Nlc

Please be very careful about informal lease extensions and informal lease extensions. Just because you use a solicitor doesnt mean it's the final statutory route using the 67 leasehold reform act.

Please join the NLC for more information

Marchmare

New Build Estates are not selling true Freehold properties and have a management fee attached which at present are uncapped and unregulated and is quite frankly legalised robbery - for example I was told £100 for grass cutting and my first bill was for treble the amount. Councils should adopt these new build estates as residentd get no Council Tax reduction so are effectively paying for services they aren't receiving and it cause untold stress and financial burdan. Banks and Building Societys are starting to refuse to lend and prospective buyers will start to avoid when the whole truth is revealed.

This also happens with Leasehold properties and the Government need to abolish this outdated practise - our Housing Market is toxic!

GDB2222

Marchmare wrote: »

New Build Estates are not selling true Freehold properties and have a management fee attached which at present are uncapped and unregulated and is quite frankly legalised robbery - for example I was told £100 for grass cutting and my first bill was for treble the amount. Councils should adopt these new build estates as residentd get no Council Tax reduction so are effectively paying for services they aren't receiving and it cause untold stress and financial burdan. Banks and Building Societys are starting to refuse to lend and prospective buyers will start to avoid when the whole truth is revealed.

This also happens with Leasehold properties and the Government need to abolish this outdated practise - our Housing Market is toxic!

The whole point is that cash-strapped councils are refusing to take on the job of maintaining estates. You can see why, as it’s costing hundreds of pounds a year per property, just for routine maintenance. And when the road needs to be resurfaced, that’s going to cost a fair whack more, too.

However, people are still piling into new build estates, with the benefit of help to buy subsidies. It’s strange that we keep getting new posters saying how awful it is to pay a few hundred a year for their estate to be maintained, but not one has mentioned that they have had a 5 year interest free loan to help buy their house!

Marg55

Many leaseholders of flats would love to gain the right to manage. I'm one of them. The difficulty is in finding the other leaseholders. When there are twenty five flats it is no easy task. Even going to the Land Registry does not guarantee success. Then when you do manage to contact other leaseholders, they do not always respond. Our flat is in the recently built Phase two yet we are paying heavily towards the upkeep of the Victorian Phase one but the freehold for Phase two is being sold separately at auction. Needless to say, our solicitor did not advise us of any of these aspects. In fact the solicitor did not even notice the previous flat owners had not paid the management fees and we were pursued for them, despite having paid them to our solicitor. We had to contact the seller's solicitor and threaten to bring in the police to resolve the issue. When you can't even rely on the solicitor you are paying fees to and that you mistakenly believed would give you sound advice, it is a poor day. Many leaseholders have had a very rude awakening to the fact that there is little legal protection for them. Fear of incurring large legal fees means freeholders often act with impunity. If there is the fear that you will have to pay for the freeholder's barrister, it is a real deterrent to trying to redress financial abuses.

Marg55

Having an interest free loan does not mean that someone should be financially abused with uncapped and made up fees. White collar crime is rife in leasehold, I'm afraid. My pension cash sum went towards a leasehold flat, money I'd worked hard for. I'm astounded to find that management companies are not regulated. How can it be legal to charge thousands for work that simply is not done? Fot two years running I have paid hundreds towards the older block, which I don't live in, being painted. It still has not had a lick of paint. Over a thousand pounds from my flat alone. The electricity bill has been hiked by 73% in this year's bill. The insurance has been hiked by 25%. It is not right, it is not fair that these unexplained increases have to be paid or we risk forfeiture. I have no problem paying for maintenance. It needs to be done. I have a real issue with paying for nothing. In any situation other than leasehold, demanding or taking payment for made up items would be easily remedied by law.

Marg55

GDB2222 seems to believe there is easy redress and legal protection for leaseholders of flats. Sadly this is not the case, as I should know, being one. Yes, I could go to First Tier Tribunal but anyone looking at leaseholders' accounts on threads on National Leasehold Campaign or Hornets would quickly see how hard it is to do this and how worrying the exposure to the risk of having to pay the freeholder's legal bill is. The human rights of freeholders have had much press coverage recently. It is a shame that the human rights of leaseholders do not seem to have the same status. Could this be because freeholders can afford to lobby and have influential political connections?

GDB2222

Marg55 wrote: »

Having an interest free loan does not mean that someone should be financially abused with uncapped and made up fees. White collar crime is rife in leasehold, I'm afraid. My pension cash sum went towards a leasehold flat, money I'd worked hard for. I'm astounded to find that management companies are not regulated. How can it be legal to charge thousands for work that simply is not done? Fot two years running I have paid hundreds towards the older block, which I don't live in, being painted. It still has not had a lick of paint. Over a thousand pounds from my flat alone. The electricity bill has been hiked by 73% in this year's bill. The insurance has been hiked by 25%. It is not right, it is not fair that these unexplained increases have to be paid or we risk forfeiture. I have no problem paying for maintenance. It needs to be done. I have a real issue with paying for nothing. In any situation other than leasehold, demanding or taking payment for made up items would be easily remedied by law.

If you think the service charges are unreasonable, why not take the matter to the tribunal? The fact is that any shared block needs to have shared maintenance, so whether that's leasehold or commonhold there's room for arguments. It does seem that your fellow flat owners are not fussed, which is why they are not interested in RTM.

You also think your solicitor fell down on the job. So, sue him.