Landlord's repair responsibilities - Roof Works

sonny_c

Good afternoon, can anyone advise please
The roof to my leasehold flat has been leaking for 6+ months causing leaks in the bathroom and entrance landing. My annual service charge for the flat is £391.
The roof was previously repaired at the Freeholders cost but the leak is still present.
Now Tenants being made to contribute for the roof works (£16,000) under Section 20 Notices for the works and submit them to the leaseholders for consideration and approval, which is being forced due to no responses from us. My percentage is £2000
I questioned section 20 Notices as I couldn't locate information in the Lease and I was told this is covered under service charges and there will not be reference to section 20’s in there. 
Below taken from Lease under 4. Services and Service Cost

• 4.1 Subject to the Tenant paying the Service Charge, to provide the services.

• 4.2 To Serve on the Tenant a notice giving full particulars of the Service Cost and stating the Service Charge payable by the date on which it is payable as soon as reasonably practical after incurring, making a decision to incur, or accepting an estimate relating to, any of the Service Cost.

• 4.3 To Keep accounts, records and receipts relating to the Service Cost incurred by the Landlord and to permit the Tenant, on giving reasonable notice, to inspect the accounts, records and receipts.

I contacted a local solicitor who wanted £1,200-£1,500 to look over lease and if I have to contribute.
The building comprises of 3 flats and 4 businesses. 

anselld

Confusing.   You are what?  Leaseholder?

Roof was previously repaired at Freeholder's expense?  Why would they do that?  There is almost never a situation where a Freeholder will spend money which cannot be recharged to the Leaseholders.  Why do you think you don't need to contribute to roof repairs?

I would suggest you reword your post using Freeholder/ Leaseholder consistently rather than a mixture of Landlord/Tenant/Freeholder/Leasholder to avoid confusion.

sonny_c

anselld said:

Confusing.   You are what?  Leaseholder?

Roof was previously repaired at Freeholder's expense?  Why would they do that?  There is almost never a situation where a Freeholder will spend money which cannot be recharged to the Leaseholders.  Why do you think you don't need to contribute to roof repairs?

I would suggest you reword your post using Freeholder/ Leaseholder consistently rather than a mixture of Landlord/Tenant/Freeholder/Leasholder to avoid confusion.

apologise..... I'm a Leaseholder.
That's correct previously the roof was repaired at Freeholders expense which I thought was there responsibility as its external. 

anselld

Freeholders generally have responsibility to maintain the exterior of the building and communal areas, yes, however they pass on the cost of that work back to the Leaseholders via the service charges.

Perhaps the previous repair was a short term fix which was below the threshold of £250 per unit where s20 consultation was needed.  So it was probably still covered in the service charge.  I can't see that the Freeholder would have self-funded it.

eddddy

Typically, leases for blocks of flats work like this...

The freeholder is responsible for arranging repairs and maintenance of the structure of the building, and the cost is shared between the leaseholders in the building.

It sounds like that's what is happening in your case - so it's working as you would normally expect.

But there are some 'unusual' leases which say that the leaseholder with a flat on the top floor is responsible for repairing the roof, and the leaseholder with a flat on the ground floor is responsible for the foundations. But that's unusual - so if it's the case, your solicitor probably would have highlighted it during the purchase.

If the freeholder has repaired the roof previously, your share has probably come out of your service charge payment - or maybe the freeholder hasn't sent out the service charge bill yet that includes those roof repairs.


But I guess it's possible (but unlikely) that you have a lease that works differently from that.

NameUnavailable

It sounds like your FREEHOLDER carried out some small repair hoping that it would fix the problem and didn't charge anything back or maybe there was enough in the service charge pot to cover whatever that cost came to.

Now they are having to carry out a bigger/more expensive repair hence the notice of works which is required due to the cost involved.

The FREEHOLDER arranges the works and charges the LEASEHOLDERS for the costs. That's how the majority of leases work.

AlexMac

£2k seems really reasonable if this will fix the roof.  Especially as it's less than one seventh of the total cost; implying that one or more of the other six owners in the block are paying more than two grand? Don't waste the same again on a futile attempt to get legal advice to argue the toss; bad money (the legal fee) after good (the roof repair) doesn't make sense.

As others say, above, the lease usually cites the freeholder's responsibilities so it's a pity that when you bought, your conveyancing solicitor didn't do what you paid them for and spell out what this meant for you in terms of likely future Service Charges and maintenence payments .  Mine always do.

The freeholder's responsibilities usually include an obligation to insure the structure of the building, and to maintain and repair common parts (such as roof, and often the external decorations, windows, lifts,etc).  It's usually explicitly or implicitly stated that they don't do this as an act of benevolence, but that these costs will be shared among leaseholders via the Service charge.  At least that's been the position in every one of the five leasehold flats I've owned over the years. 

If it's a "shared freehold" (where the leaseholders collectively own the freehold) we've planned and organised stuff like this ourselves;. If an absent freeholder is involved, they usually share the costs between the leaseholders, adding a management fee, to cover their costs, as they ain't doing this for fun, but running a business. And three hundred odd quid p.a is a really low Service charge; I have tended to pay between  £800- £1,400 pa, so your one has no slack in it for repairs I'd guess.  I also tend to get hit with a £4k-£5k bill every ten years or so - for my share of major repairs; external decs or new windows - on the two little ex-council BTL flats I own. Here the Local Authority freeholder treats us incredibly fairly and doesn't pad the bill.

So I'd cough up! 

brianposter

If the leak is into your flat it is surprising that you do not know exactly what is happening. I would certainly be inclined to check that what is being proposed makes sense.