Sold leasehold flat - no notice of transfer by new buyer

firsttimesellerldn

I sold my leasehold flat last summer. Since then I've occasionally received letters from the management company via email seeking service charge payment. They know I don't own the flat any more and I've provided them with the name of the new owner and of their solicitor. However, their solicitor hasn't sent them a notice of transfer which they say they need, and so they are still sending me automated requests for the service charge, including adding late payment charges etc. I don't think they're actually expecting me to pay, but I would like to get this resolved so that I don't accidentally get referred to a debt collector by someone who doesn't know what is going on. And so I stop receiving these emails.. 

Do I have any responsibility for sorting out the missing notice of transfer beyond the buyer's details I've already provided to them, or do I just need to put my foot down and tell the management company to remove my details and stop contacting me about this? I've checked the lease and it's clear that the buyer is the one who needs to do this, not the seller. So they are currently in breach of the lease. I've also forwarded an email to the buyer themselves (we had each others email addresses), but I didn't hear anything back. 

I have £300 with my solicitors as a contingency fund in case I had any remaining service charge liability so will want to get that back come April, which might be difficult if this is still rumbling on. (I haven't asked my solicitors about the notice of transfer issue yet - they were generally awful and the person I dealt with directly is no longer there.) 

Grateful for any insights.. 

penners324

Send the letters to the new owners, it's their responsibility 

eddddy

Obviously, you won't be paying the service charge.  So typically, the freeholder would eventually start the process of forfeiting the lease (i.e. repossessing the flat).

So you should contact the buyer (or maybe even the buyer's solicitor) to tell the buyer that they are at risk of having the lease forfeited and losing their flat, if they don't arrange the notice of transfer.

And you could mention that all the notices of forfeiture will be sent to you, so the buyer might not even know that their lease is being forfeited.  


The management company might be sympathetic to your situation - but they don't really have any choice - they have to send the service charge bills to you. There are legal implications if they start sending service charge bills to the new owners, before they've received a notice of transfer.





Edit to add...
The above assumes that the service charge bills are the ones mentioned in the lease... and not some kind of 'payments in installments' agreement which the freeholder has offered you, which is not mentioned in the lease.

Your buyer has taken over responsibility for the lease...

... but they probably won't have taken over responsibility for any separate 'payments in installments' agreement. 

firsttimesellerldn

Thanks for this. It's all a bit odd. I don't have any idea why the notice hasn't been produced, but I hope that the buyer has contacted their solicitor off the back of my email.

If I don't get confirmation from the management company that the notice has appeared shortly I think I will fire off emails to the parties pointing out the breach of the lease and the risks. The block is right to manage so I can let the directors know as well. Obviously not good for them if service charges can't be collected..

(I didn't have any special arrangements for paying the service charge - I paid quarterly and in advance which was the standard arrangement offered. At completion I know the buyer had to stump up the service charge for the rest of the year and they're now billing for Q1 of 2022. The management company is clear that the issue is purely the notice of transfer not being received.)