Block Management disputes

Gio22

Hello, anybody who has experienced big issues with their building management or has even ended up suing them and can help me with some advise? 

cattie

You probably need to give more info, such as is property share of freehold or solely leasehold? How many disatisfied leaseholders and at least a hint of what the issues are.

Gio22

cattie said:

You probably need to give more info, such as is property share of freehold or solely leasehold? How many disatisfied leaseholders and at least a hint of what the issues are.

Hello. I live in a 3 apartments building in London. I bought the apartment in May 2020. The apartments below and above are not involved in the complaint as the one above is being sold recently and no one is still there while the apartment below it is used as a meeting place by different terrible people so the owner does not live here and doesn't care about the building conditions.
As I am a leaseholder I must pay service charges, starting from January 2021. Since when I moved here some light wall's graffiti, lift and garden have been not removed or fixed. I have sent thousand of emails and some of the minor issues have been solved, however the building looks ugly because the company does not take action. I have spoken today with the cleaning contractors and they told me that when they signed the contract, 2 years ago, walls and garden were in the same condition, so the company is not painting walls and doing the gardening from years!!
I have sent months of evidences to the redress scheme, they have provisionally accepted my case and I am now awaiting for their official acceptance. But will the redress scheme help me? What I really want is to prove the negligence of this company in order to get rid of them. What else should I do? I am currently awaiting to see who will come upstairs, but if there are tenants I am pretty sure I will be the only one fighting against the company. 
PS I want also to specify that I have reported to the police and to the management company extremely anti-social behaviour from this people below my apartment  and I told them how unsafe I feel as the building is accessible to a lot of different people who play music loud, smoke weed and have also defecated in a corner of the communal area. I am trapped among uncivilised people and useless management company. I have never imagined I could live such a nightmare. I am wondering if there is anything else I can do to improve the current situation?

knightstyle

You should have the freeholders details.  Complain to them in writing, copy to the management company, if no response complain again.  Have a look here for more.  https://www.lease-advice.org/
It is possible t

NameUnavailable

knightstyle said:

You should have the leaseholders details.  Complain to them in writing, copy to the management company, if no response complain again.  Have a look here for more.  https://www.lease-advice.org/
It is possible t

I think you mean freeholder

NameUnavailable

Limited options in a block of 3. Complain to the freeholder who may or may not care.

Be aware if you take legal action that you may be liable for their costs as well as yours whatever the outcome. It might be quicker and cheaper for you to fix the issues yourself. The neighbour issues are a matter for the police and environmental health by the sounds of it, but bear in mind you still have to live next to them.

coachman12

I find it hard to understand how all the endless list of awful things you live with have all arisen just since you moved in 5 months ago. I also think that having to send "thousands" of emails in those short 5 months is not too over-exaggerated then you have too many problems. And at least some of them must have been in evidence before and after you moved in-----did you not check out in some detail the place where you were planning to live ? Having said that, I sympathise with your life being ruined by so many issues of grave concern. Your post highlights so many such issues that it seems impossible to deal with all of them------if I were you, I'd leave now before you have a nervous breakdown. 

princeofpounds

This is a rather confused thread, both in terms of the original question and some of the follow-up... Let's go back to basics.

OP, from your description the situation appears to be as follows (do correct if there is anything wrong):
- You own the leasehold to a flat, one of three in the building.
- The freehold is owned by a third party. That freeholder is not also a leaseholder.
- The freeholder employs a managing agent, who is doing a poor job.

The most obvious route to solve this would be attempting to exercise right-to-manage. The link below describes this process. It will take work, but it might allow you - as a group of leaseholders -to take control of the building (and in particular the power to appoint and sack managing agents, who you can employ to do much of the day-to-day work for you if you like).
https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/right-manage/

With three leaseholders in the block, you will need at least one to work with you on this process. Under RTM, the freeholder will also get a vote if they want it, so if one leaseholder is truly absent then two leaseholders can outvote the freeholder. If the freeholder allies with a single leaseholder however, then the situation is more difficult. So make sure you know what your plans are before you move.

An alternative which get the freeholder totally out of the picture would be collective enfranchisement - the leaseholders forcing the sale of the freehold. But this costs money as it has real value. Still, maybe worth looking into.
https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/ce-getting-started/

AdrianC

Gio22 said:

I live in a 3 apartments building in London. I bought the apartment in May 2020. The apartments below and above are not involved in the complaint
...
Since when I moved here some light wall's graffiti, lift and garden have been not removed or fixed. I have sent thousand of emails and some of the minor issues have been solved, however the building looks ugly because the company does not take action. I have spoken today with the cleaning contractors and they told me that when they signed the contract, 2 years ago, walls and garden were in the same condition, so the company is not painting walls and doing the gardening from years!!

So you bought the flat in the full knowledge that the building was in this condition?

And you are the only one of the leaseholders who have an issue with it?

You do realise that, if they start doing the work, you will be paying for it as a leaseholder through the service charge?

Gio22

I need some advice not criticism. I saw this issues when I bought the apartment, however the apartment itself is really nice and  I thought that, by having a management company that should take care of the building, everything was going to be solved in few months by making few calls. When I have started to email and call my block manager with poor results, I have realized that they are not providing the service they should. Now my question is:  anyone that have appealed to the redress scheme has seen an improvement in their block management's service afterwards?  

princeofpounds

Which redress scheme? TPO or something else? They can help to a degree, and managing agents will often try to avoid cases because it's an admin burden for them, and so improve a bit. But if you want to change things totally then you need to RTM and change (or threaten to) the agent.