Freehold paying management fees when others on the development do not!

lyork901720

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can help me out please. We bought a new house in 2013, when buying the house the advisor explained we would be required to pay an annual fee to a managing agent for the upkeep of the development. It was a clause added to our TP1 document and we are therefore legally obliged to pay these annual fees. We have never questioned this before but on having a discussion with my friend who is also a neighbour she disclosed that she has never paid these fees, she didn’t know anything about them. On making some
more enquiries with a few more neighbours around us, it seems there’s only a fraction of us paying these fees. Our next door neighbour pays them but another 4 neighbours in close proximity do not. I spoke with the managing agent and they stated that they only send invoices to those who have the clause in their TP1 document and that this was set up by the developers. I was told I would need to take this up with the developers. I have complained to them and they have acknowledged receipt of my complaint. They have fobbed me off with a response telling me anyone who has it in their TP1 is legally obliged to pay and continue to pay these fees and that they are trying to retrieve the developments documentation to review. I am well aware of our legal obligations and have always paid these fees, my issue and my confusion is how they can possibly add this clause to a small number of homebuyers and not all on the development when they purchased the houses. I just feel like it can’t possibly be right and it is certainly not fair for a fraction of us to pay these fees to maintain the development on behalf of all of the homeowners on site. Based on the % we pay each year, it looks like there’s approximately 30 of us paying fees on a development with around 120 houses on it. Does anyone have any experience of these fees or know what our legal rights would be on fighting this? I feel like there must be more we can do but are helpless at the moment waiting on the developers. They have currently had 30 working days to look into this and get the info they need but are still not in a position to clarify what has happened here! Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

princeofpounds

This is certainly unusual, and no, it's not fair. But that doesn't mean it's not correct. If it's in your title, you can be charged. If it isn't, you can't. And there's no 'fobbing off' in that answer, it's the legal position.

One area you might want to investigate is what the covenants imply about apportioning the management fees. For example, should it be divided by 30 or 120?

lyork901720

When I say fobbing off I don’t mean the part where they explain our legal obligations, I understand the obligations and accept them. It’s the crux of the complaint that I feel I’m being fobbed off with, they say that there’s delays retrieving the site information due to Covid which I totally understand, these are unprecedented times so I get that it may take longer but they can’t give me any idea on when they might have this info. Anyway, I guess it’s just a waiting game in that regard. It’s more understanding if I’m right in how I feel, I have no idea about anything like this other than it feels wrong that not all homebuyers would have this obligation. I guess Im looking for opinions on whether i’m barking up the wrong tree and someone may know something I don’t with how this all works. In my head, I’d have thought that as part of buying the houses, it would have been discussed and added to everyone’s TP1’s, but it just feels like It’s been done incorrectly and only added to a proportion. If it were to be split between 30 and not the 120, who would decide which 30. It just seems so wrong. But then I have no idea! 

Thank you so much for responding to me so quickly. And apologies, can you help me understand what you mean by “ One area you might want to investigate is what the covenants imply about apportioning the management fees. For example, should it be divided by 30 or 120?” How could I go about finding this out? Thanks again. 

princeofpounds

I'm also struggling to understand why this might be done. Given the round numbers involved, it sounds like it may be to do with phases on the estate, and mistakes in drafting the contracts perhaps. But once done, it's done, that's the deal that everyone signed up to.

What I mean by apportionment - there is a total bill for these services. It gets divided up somehow - that should be defined in the covenant (I'm assuming you are freehold, correct me if wrong) - something like 'this property should pay an equal share of all the houses on the estate'. But it may not be explicitly defined, just implicit in how it is expressed. The question is whether that total charge should be divided between all the houses on the estate, or just those liable to pay it. 

You could post the relevant paragraphs here perhaps, and/or ask your old conveyancer for their view.

RelievedSheff

Are the houses paying the fees on private shared driveways rather than fronting onto adoptable highways?

daveyjp

Did you use your own solicitor, or one recommended by the developer?

You probably have very few legal rights as regards the charges, you agreed to pay them and this is now registered on the title.   It does not however mean only a few owners are paying the cost for the whole estate.

The neighbours may have refused an annual payment (the terms and remedies for none payment can be very draconian and their solicitor may have advised them of this), but they may have paid more for their property in the form of a commuted sum to cover the annual costs for 20-30 years.

You can get the title of a neighbour's property that doesn't pay for £3 via land registry through gov.uk and compare their terms to yours.

lyork901720

Hi princeofpounds, Thank you so much for taking the time to help me with this. Yes we are freehold. Please excuse the round numbers, that’s me rounding them off. I don’t have the exact numbers on how many pay the fees, of course, the management company were not able to share that with me, I’ve based that number on the percentage we pay. It’s approximate as is the number of houses on the development. I will try and find out exact numbers of houses. I must be able to find this online. I’ll dig out all of my paperwork and have a look at the wording used. The managing agents originally came back with the response that all homeowners are required to pay these fees, after explaining that I knew this wasn’t the case they then told me it would only be those that the developer added the clause to. If that makes sense. Hence why they pointed back to them. I feel like I’m going a bit crazy with it all and not sure where to start.

lyork901720

Hi relievedsheff, thank you for your response, we have a shared drive with our neighbour behind our property but do not use the shared carpark on the estate. We don’t have a car parking space, I’ve been made aware of another house on the front of the development that does pay and they have a car parking space. They benefit from the services provided as they sweep the carpark, remove leaves etc. Not very often! But they do. In fact where we are situated we feel no benefit of what they do as outside of our property doesn’t receive any maintenance or upkeep. We have called many times asking why our part of the street has not been swept, we have leaves accumulating in the road in front and were told that they are not required to clean this part of the estate. Just last week, the council appeared outside with road sweepers and told us the road had now been adopted and that they would be coming round to sweep more regularly. It’s all just so bizarre! I’m left thinking, what on earth do we pay for when the council are now maintaining the streets outside. But that aside, I understand we have a legal obligation to pay whether we believe it to be worthwhile or fair. It’s the bit about others not paying and I can’t understand why. For instance, there’s a couple opposite, in the same position on the estate as our house, same style house, bought 18months later and they don’t pay the fees. 

lyork901720

Hi daveyjp, thank you for your response, we used the solicitors they advised us to use. As first time buyers, we didn’t really know what we were doing and we went with their recommendation. Needless to say, we are much more clued up now! They also told us it was a condition of the sale to use a mortgage broker, we were told who we needed to go through and ended up having our mortgage mis-sold to us! That is all resolved now but was another nightmare of a fight. We were naive in that regard as we believed what they told us, of course everything on hindsight is great isn’t it! We weren’t given a choice in terms of the management fees, we were told it was something that everyone was required to pay and didn’t think to question it. My friend was not given that option you mentioned, to add onto the property price, it was just never discussed or mentioned, neither was it for the other 3 neighbours we have discussed it with. They just looked at us like we were crazy, they’d never heard of management fees, the company and it was never discussed with them at all. It’s all just so frustrating! 

getmore4less

Check the planning for the estate that will have information that will be useful.

Numbdr and property types and usually has information on what will be adopted. 

Could be those that said we don't want to be paying that got it removed.

saajan_12

You wouldn't have any say in whether other flat owners pay charges, nor would it help you. You also should be paying something, which you can't get out of.
The key is what proportion of the total estate / building costs you should be paying. eg if it costs £120k per year to maintain the entire area, should you be paying one 30th (ie £4k) or one 120th (ie £1k). For that, you need to read your lease.