Leasehold accounts 2018

PerfectMess

We sold in June and moved house with a retention kept as the accounts for 2018 were still being finalised “to be available end of June 2019”. This came and went and I had to speak to the management company in December, on another issue, and was told they were almost finalised and would then go to external auditor which takes 2-3 months so would be available say March/April 2020. I’ve now heard that the accounts still haven’t been finalised with no estimate of whether they will ever be finalised and once they are they still need to go to the auditor for 2-3 months. Is this acceptable practise? We’ll be going on for over 18 months since the end of 2018 at an absolute minimum. 

Kyresa

The retention should have said something like until the year end accounts are published or until (x date in the future .. i.e. in this case I'd probably put something like December 2019)    Check the wording of the retention. speak to your solicitor about it. 

Tiglet2

Yes normal I'm afraid.  Unless there was a time limit stated in the wording of the retention, you will have to wait until the year end accounts are published or the buyer's solicitor agrees that your solicitor can release the retention back to you.

PerfectMess

Thank you for replying I can see now that we should have requested a time limit. It was more about the length of time the management company can take to finalise the accounts. So they can just take as long as they like basically and it could be another few years?

Tiglet2

You should know when the "year end" is from when you lived there.  Final Accounts should be published within six months of the year end (at least that's what normally happens....)

PerfectMess

Yes year end was 31st December 2018. I’d seen 6 months written somewhere else on here and was wondering if that was an official timescale. Clearly 6 months have been and gone in this case. Last year when the company took over they were very prompt in requesting the extra money from a shortfall.