Deed of Covenant issues causing Service Charge Arrears

vikkisteward

Desperately seeking advice! Sorry this is a long post…

I bought a flat in Dec 2021, it’s leasehold and I have a separate company I pay ground rent and service charge payments to. On completion I signed all the relevant documents including my Deed of Covenant and paid for the next 6 months worth of service charge as I was told to do so by my original conveyancer. This was over £800. 

I then get contacted in Feb 2022 to ask me to re sign the Deed of Covenant (which is entirely different to the last deed I signed). No reason was given as to why I had to re sign, as it was not discussed on completion that something was wrong with the first copy. I sign the deed again and send it back with nothing further heard. 

I got to June 2022 and wondered why I hadn’t been contacted by the service charge company to request 2022/2023’s payments as the account runs June to July each year. I then receive an email from a solicitor hired by the management company to obtain service charge arrears who tells me that the deed wasn’t signed correctly and so the management company are refusing to accept any further payments until this is sorted. They had been in contact with my original conveyancer without my knowledge (as my conveyancer did not inform me of the issue). I sign yet another deed and have this sent back to my conveyancer and the solicitor hired by the management company states there are arrears on the account for 2021/2022. I raise this with my conveyancer stating I was told an amount to pay at the time which would cover 6 months, so why was I now being billed over £400 extra. Following this complaint the original sellers conveyancing firm paid the arrears (thankfully). Believing this new deed had now settled the issues I heard no further from anyone. I had asked about paying next years payments but no one had gotten back to me with any details. 

Then in Sept 2022 I get sent another deed to sign which I again sign and send back. Still no explanation as to why I have to keep signing this. 

I became very unwell in Sept 2022 and had to be hospitalised facing months of treatment ahead so dealing with this deed fell by the wayside. However in Nov 2022 I get sent another deed to sign, which again I sign and send back, choosing to focus on my health and not this bunch of incompetent solicitors. 

Until Jan 2023 when I get an email from my original conveyor saying they hadn’t received my sign deed and so could I sign it AGAIN! 

I have now signed 5 Deed’s (I’m still waiting to see if the conveyor will even acknowledge receipt of this one)

By this point I’m so angry this keeps happening and so I contact the solicitor hired by the management company again to find out what’s going on. He essentially says that each time the deed wasn’t signed as to how the management company wanted it so they had kept sending it back to my conveyor. This is all over the details they wanted from whoever witnessed the deed (it would appear that despite each witness giving their name, signature and address they also wanted an occupation which didn’t appear until the latest deed). I am now 6+ months into a new financial year and still cannot make payments to this years accounts because they haven’t accepted any of the deeds. (Yet all my ground rent payments to a separate company have been accepted). 

I am being told I need to clear the arrears once this deed is accepted, which I fully intend to pay, but where is the money I have already paid if they cannot accept payments without an accepted deed of covenant? They have over £1000 of money that no one can tell me where it is. 

What legal action can I take regarding all of this? I have complained to my original conveyor who has ignored my complaint. They were sent that on the 9th Jan. I have requested details of my payments from the management company regarding the service charge payments to see where my money already paid sits in the account too. 

To top all of this off, I am still not the registered owner of my own home on the land registry despite having this flat for more than a year. I believe this has something to do with the deed too but I am just so angry and disappointed that all of this has been allowed to happen and believe my original conveyor is the sole blame to all of this. I have paid them thousands for nothing but hassle and incompetent service. 

Any advice would be very appreciated!

propertyrental

Have you been keeping copies of each deed you signed, and/or copies of the letters you sent enclosing the deeds?

Have you raised a formal internal complaint with your solicitors who have clearly not adequately managed your purchase?

vikkisteward

I have copies of the 1st and 2nd deed, unfortunately I didn’t retain a copy of the 3rd and 4th but I have a copy of the 5th. (All originals were sent to my solicitors). I’ve only ever communicated by email so I have all the previous communications. 

Yes I raised the complaint on the 9th Jan. I know how their complaints process works as I went through it before with the previous arrears issue in June which they acknowledged and dealt with very quickly. However after sending this most recent complaint my solicitors haven’t acknowledged it in the 2 weeks it’s been since I emailed. I sent the 5th deed again on the 19th, attached a scanned copy to the email and sent the original in the post. Also stating they still hadn’t acknowledged my complaint. (These emails were sent to the complaints inbox and the conveyancer dealing with the deed).

eddddy

vikkisteward said:

....and paid for the next 6 months worth of service charge as I was told to do so by my original conveyancer. This was over £800. 

Who did you pay the £800 to?

• Was it your conveyancer - to pass on to the seller - as a service charge apportionment? (Because your seller had already paid for the next 6 months)

• Or was it to the management company - because a 6 month service charge bill was received by somebody?

vikkisteward said:

They have over £1000 of money that no one can tell me where it is. 

Who has that money - and how did they get it?  If it's money that you paid to the management company, are they saying that they didn't receive it?

Perhaps the main worry is that once this is all sorted out, the management company might say 'late fees' are due because of the mess-up. Then you'll have to argue with your conveyancer that they should pay them.

vikkisteward

eddddy said:

vikkisteward said:

....and paid for the next 6 months worth of service charge as I was told to do so by my original conveyancer. This was over £800. 

Who did you pay the £800 to?

• Was it your conveyancer - to pass on to the seller - as a service charge apportionment? (Because your seller had already paid for the next 6 months)

• Or was it to the management company - because a 6 month service charge bill was received by somebody?

vikkisteward said:

They have over £1000 of money that no one can tell me where it is. 

Who has that money - and how did they get it?  If it's money that you paid to the management company, are they saying that they didn't receive it?

Perhaps the main worry is that once this is all sorted out, the management company might say 'late fees' are due because of the mess-up. Then you'll have to argue with your conveyancer that they should pay them.

The £800 was paid to my conveyancer to pass onto the sellers solicitors. It was part of a larger fee paid together that encompassed service charge, ground rent and an indemnity policy to cover to the end of Dec 2021. I don’t know how much of this £800 was to reimburse what the seller had overpaid, however from the figures I was sent back in June it would appear the seller only covered up until the end of Dec, I became the owner on the 17th so wouldn’t of had too much to pay back. 

It appears that the sellers solicitors and my solicitors worked out a calculation that would cover the rest of the financial year to June which is where this £800 came from. 

I’ve made no direct payments myself to the management company. Each payment has gone through the sellers solicitors. 

2021/2022 is now covered regardless of how messed up these payments were. I just can’t pay 2022/2023 until they accept the deed. 

I just want to know if there’s any form of action I can take against my conveyancer for completely incompetent service. I paid them a lot of money yet I’ve been faced with so many problems. 

I know if they don’t deal with my complaint I can go to the legal ombudsman but that states I have to wait 8 weeks before I can move on to that