Admin fees for Ground rent in arrears

Cool100

hi all,
I did try to search on the forum but couldn't find any advice on this, hence posting a new thread -
I moved house in Jan hence missed two chaser letters from Mainstay regarding late Ground rent payments, as a result they want to charge me a total of £96 for an annual ground rent payment of £300.
I don't think this is fair and I plan to file a complaint/ appeal to Mainstay (& the land owner) using below grounds:
1. they only issue the chasers by post which were sent to the old address, question is should they also chase via email, given the invoice was sent via email in the first place?
2. the £96 admin fee is 32% of the ground rent amount, is it a fair amount? if yes, how can they justify it?
Can you please kindly advise if above makes sense? if not, any other advice please?
thanks

davidmcn

Cool100 said:

they only issue the chasers by post which were sent to the old address

Had you told them your new address?

moneysavinghero

Has it cost them £96 to send a couple of chasers letters. Highly unlikely. Do they care whether you think it is fair. Highly unlikely.

Pay the £300 you owe and leave it to them to decide whether they want to bother to take you to court for the £96. Then the courts can decide whether or not the £96 is fair or not.

Cool100

to be 100% honest, I can't remember if i updated it via an online portal or not, i would expect myself to have done it. 
can you still comment on whether the two arguments i used are good enough?
thanks 

Cool100

moneysavinghero said:

Has it cost them £96 to send a couple of chasers letters. Highly unlikely. Do they care whether you think it is fair. Highly unlikely.

Pay the £300 you owe and leave it to them to decide whether they want to bother to take you to court for the £96. Then the courts can decide whether or not the £96 is fair or not.

thanks, makes sense.
but still want to appeal it though so it's officially resolved. 
what do you think of the two arguments i used?

eddddy

The late fees should reflect their costs - they're not allowed to make a profit out of them.  (But the fact that it's 32% isn't relevant)

I guess your 'complaint' depends on whether you believe you told them your new address. And also, you were at fault for not paying your ground rent.

Perhaps one option for a complaint might be something like this:
"Please provide a breakdown of the £96 administration fee, including your time spent on this matter, and your hourly rate. I believe that £40 would be a reasonable fee in these circumstances. If you insist that a fee of £96 is payable, I will pay under protest and potentially challenge this and your other fees at a Tribunal."


And it's not a good idea to withhold payment of the £96. If you do, they will send more letters and charge you more fees, and eventually instruct a solicitor, and start charging you for the solicitor's time.

Then, if you go to tribunal and lose, not only will you have to pay the £96 - you'll have to pay all those extra admin fees as well. (But if you pay the £96 now and then lose at Tribunal, you'll avoid those extra admin fees.)

ratechaser

The only way this gets 'officially' resolved is if it goes to court. But as advised, send the cheque for £300, with a brief note to say that the £96 is disproportionate and unjustified, and they have not made reasonable efforts to contact you. Ensure they have your current address!

eddddy

ratechaser said:

The only way this gets 'officially' resolved is if it goes to court. But as advised, send the cheque for £300, with a brief note to say that the £96 is disproportionate and unjustified, and they have not made reasonable efforts to contact you. Ensure they have your current address!

As mentioned above, withholding payment of admin fees is risky. It could end up very expensive - unless you're 100% sure you'd win at Tribunal.

It's often better to pay 'under protest', and then challenge it.


Unfortunately, the freeholders have a bit of an unfair advantage in these situations.

Cool100

thanks all.
can you please also advise if it helps to contact the landlord (Bellway) to dispute this and ask them to ask Mainstay to cancel the admin fees?

eddddy

Cool100 said:

thanks all.
can you please also advise if it helps to contact the landlord (Bellway) to dispute this and ask them to ask Mainstay to cancel the admin fees?

I don't think the landlord would be particularly interested.  They've hired a managing agent because they don't want to get involved in this kind of stuff.

NameUnavailable

Bear in mind if you go to tribunal that any costs incurred by the management company might be passed back to you under the service charge - check what your lease says.

Challenging £96, and winning, could cost you several thousand if they employ solicitors to deal with the case !