Sudden £9k section 20 notice - can I do anything?

pannonica

eddddy said:

pannonica said:

What worries me is that if I have to take legal advice, book in someone else to do a survey, get someone to do quotes etc., this doesn't seem like loads of time to get all that done.

The law says that costs must be 'reasonable'.

You can interpret 'reasonable' as meaning...

• It's 'reasonable' to do all the work - i.e. the repairs and painting are needed. And, for example,  it's 'reasonable' to scaffold the whole building (e.g. as opposed to using scaffold tower, cherry picker, etc)

• The price being charged for the work is 'reasonable' - e.g. They're not paying a firm £5k for scaffolding, when other firms would charge £2k.

That's the kind of thing an suitable building surveyor should be able to tell you.


You don't have to get quotes. You just have to give the council the name of the company.  The council will then ask the company for quotes. (But you should probably ask the companies if they'd be interested in quoting and doing the job - before putting their name forward.)

pannonica said:

Regarding right to manage, the other flat is owned by the local authority, so my understanding is that there isn't a lease. Does this mean right to manage isn't an option for me? I'd be interested in looking into buying the freehold as well (as a more long term thing I guess, not to deal with this issue now) but I'm not sure if this is doable either in this situation.

I think you're scuppered in that case. You won't have the legal Right to Manage, or the legal right to buy the freehold.

In theory, the council could 'voluntarily' sell you the freehold - put I doubt they'd do that while they have a tenant in the other flat.

I don't see how they can possibly argue that it's reasonable to say all this work is necessary. The idea of painting the external walls (the most expensive single item on the list besides the scaffolding) is silly, the walls aren't painted now, to my knowledge they never have been, and none of the other houses in the terrace are painted. I just spoke to the upstairs tenant and she agrees that it'd be stupid to paint them. They can't possibly argue that it's necessary.

As for the prices, reasonable is definitely not a word any sane person would use to describe them.

So do I need to find both a building surveyor (to give a second opinion on how much of this work is actually necessary) as well as some contractors (decorators?) to give quotes to do the work? Should I find some who are willing to do the work and then pass their details on to the management company in my response?

Regarding the right to manage/buying freehold - I was worried that's what you were going to say. I'll see if I can investigate it a bit more anyway, it'd definitely make sense to do if it is possible. Couldn't the council sell me a share of the freehold, rather than the whole freehold?

pannonica

eddddy said:

pannonica said:

This is the third section 20 notice I’ve had in the last year and a half since I bought the flat (the other two seemed similarly unnecessary but were less expensive at least).

Will all the service charges amount to more than £15k if you're in London, or £10k if you're outside London?

There are some rules for social landlords...

There is a potential cap on the costs for major works if the mandatory reduction for service charges applies.

The Mandatory reduction directions for social landlords (councils or housing associations) came into force in England on 12 August 2014.

The Directions limit the amount of service charges recoverable from leaseholders of social landlords, who occupy their flat or house as their only or principal home.

Within any 5-year period, the maximum a landlord can recover is limited to £15,000 within London and £10,000 outside London.

Link: https://www.lease-advice.org/faq/my-landlord-is-the-local-council-or-a-housing-association-they-are-planning-to-carry-out-a-lot-of-work-on-my-estate-leading-to-high-service-charge-bills-is-there-any-limit-on-how-much-i-can-be-asked/

See also: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/342737/140811_Mandatory_signed.pdf

I'm not really familiar with those rules, so I don't know if there are exemptions etc. Maybe start by asking the council if those rules apply to you.

The total charges for the three section 20s are not as high as £15k but it's not far off. At least I know that I won't have to pay more (or much more) for the next five years (if those rules do apply). I'm curious to how many section 20s have been issued to this property in the past. Wonder if that's something I could find out with a freedom of information request.

eddddy

pannonica said:

 Couldn't the council sell me a share of the freehold, rather than the whole freehold?

"Share of freehold" is a misleading term used by estate agents. It means joint ownership of a building.

So you're asking about jointly owning an end-of-terrace building with the council.  (In some ways, it would be a bit like jointly owning, say, a car with the council.)

• So one of you wants to repaint the building that you jointly own, the other doesn't want to repaint it. How do you decide what to do?

• One of you wants to use Global Luxury Decorators Ltd to do the repainting, the other wants to use George and Bill from the pub. How do you agree who to use?

TBH, I'm pretty sure that the council won't want to jointly own a building with you anyway - it would be too much hassle for them - especially as the building is housing one of their tenants. 


(For example, the council's tenant might phone the council to say the roof leaks when it rains. So the council would then have to phone you to tell you. Then you and the council would have to make a plan together for fixing the roof.

And you might refuse to cooperate - so the council's tenant is left with a leaking roof.)

pannonica said:

Regarding the right to manage/buying freehold - I was worried that's what you were going to say. I'll see if I can investigate it a bit more anyway, it'd definitely make sense to do if it is possible. 

• The rules that allow you to qualify for "Right To Manage" are here: https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/right-manage/

The legal term for compulsorily buying the freehold of flats is "Collective Enfranchisement".

• The rules that allow you to qualify for Collective Enfranchisement are here: https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/ce-getting-started/

Unfortunately, you'll see that your building doesn't qualify for either (based on what you've said so far in your posts).

CSI_Yorkshire

pannonica said:

eddddy said:

pannonica said:

What worries me is that if I have to take legal advice, book in someone else to do a survey, get someone to do quotes etc., this doesn't seem like loads of time to get all that done.

The law says that costs must be 'reasonable'.

You can interpret 'reasonable' as meaning...

• It's 'reasonable' to do all the work - i.e. the repairs and painting are needed. And, for example,  it's 'reasonable' to scaffold the whole building (e.g. as opposed to using scaffold tower, cherry picker, etc)

• The price being charged for the work is 'reasonable' - e.g. They're not paying a firm £5k for scaffolding, when other firms would charge £2k.

That's the kind of thing an suitable building surveyor should be able to tell you.


You don't have to get quotes. You just have to give the council the name of the company.  The council will then ask the company for quotes. (But you should probably ask the companies if they'd be interested in quoting and doing the job - before putting their name forward.)

pannonica said:

Regarding right to manage, the other flat is owned by the local authority, so my understanding is that there isn't a lease. Does this mean right to manage isn't an option for me? I'd be interested in looking into buying the freehold as well (as a more long term thing I guess, not to deal with this issue now) but I'm not sure if this is doable either in this situation.

I think you're scuppered in that case. You won't have the legal Right to Manage, or the legal right to buy the freehold.

In theory, the council could 'voluntarily' sell you the freehold - put I doubt they'd do that while they have a tenant in the other flat.

I don't see how they can possibly argue that it's reasonable to say all this work is necessary. The idea of painting the external walls (the most expensive single item on the list besides the scaffolding) is silly,

But doesn't the document that you provided earlier say the lessor is required "to paint and decorate in a good and workmanlike manner the exterior of the Building"?

pannonica

eddddy said:

pannonica said:

 Couldn't the council sell me a share of the freehold, rather than the whole freehold?

"Share of freehold" is a misleading term used by estate agents. It means joint ownership of a building.

So you're asking about jointly owning an end-of-terrace building with the council.  (In some ways, it would be a bit like jointly owning, say, a car with the council.)

• So one of you wants to repaint the building that you jointly own, the other doesn't want to repaint it. How do you decide what to do?

• One of you wants to use Global Luxury Decorators Ltd to do the repainting, the other wants to use George and Bill from the pub. How do you agree who to use?

TBH, I'm pretty sure that the council won't want to jointly own a building with you anyway - it would be too much hassle for them - especially as the building is housing one of their tenants. 


(For example, the council's tenant might phone the council to say the roof leaks when it rains. So the council would then have to phone you to tell you. Then you and the council would have to make a plan together for fixing the roof.

And you might refuse to cooperate - so the council's tenant is left with a leaking roof.)

pannonica said:

Regarding the right to manage/buying freehold - I was worried that's what you were going to say. I'll see if I can investigate it a bit more anyway, it'd definitely make sense to do if it is possible. 

• The rules that allow you to qualify for "Right To Manage" are here: https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/right-manage/

The legal term for compulsorily buying the freehold of flats is "Collective Enfranchisement".

• The rules that allow you to qualify for Collective Enfranchisement are here: https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/ce-getting-started/

Unfortunately, you'll see that your building doesn't qualify for either (based on what you've said so far in your posts).

Yeah. That's kind of what I figured. It does seem like a bit of a hopeless situation though, if the management company can just snap their fingers, pull a figure out of the air and demand money whenever they feel like it. I guess all I can do is put together the best response I can to this and then take it far as I reasonably can (taking to a tribunal if it goes that far). Maybe that'll discourage them from trying something like this again, who knows.

pannonica

CSI_Yorkshire said:

pannonica said:

eddddy said:

pannonica said:

What worries me is that if I have to take legal advice, book in someone else to do a survey, get someone to do quotes etc., this doesn't seem like loads of time to get all that done.

The law says that costs must be 'reasonable'.

You can interpret 'reasonable' as meaning...

• It's 'reasonable' to do all the work - i.e. the repairs and painting are needed. And, for example,  it's 'reasonable' to scaffold the whole building (e.g. as opposed to using scaffold tower, cherry picker, etc)

• The price being charged for the work is 'reasonable' - e.g. They're not paying a firm £5k for scaffolding, when other firms would charge £2k.

That's the kind of thing an suitable building surveyor should be able to tell you.


You don't have to get quotes. You just have to give the council the name of the company.  The council will then ask the company for quotes. (But you should probably ask the companies if they'd be interested in quoting and doing the job - before putting their name forward.)

pannonica said:

Regarding right to manage, the other flat is owned by the local authority, so my understanding is that there isn't a lease. Does this mean right to manage isn't an option for me? I'd be interested in looking into buying the freehold as well (as a more long term thing I guess, not to deal with this issue now) but I'm not sure if this is doable either in this situation.

I think you're scuppered in that case. You won't have the legal Right to Manage, or the legal right to buy the freehold.

In theory, the council could 'voluntarily' sell you the freehold - put I doubt they'd do that while they have a tenant in the other flat.

I don't see how they can possibly argue that it's reasonable to say all this work is necessary. The idea of painting the external walls (the most expensive single item on the list besides the scaffolding) is silly,

But doesn't the document that you provided earlier say the lessor is required "to paint and decorate in a good and workmanlike manner the exterior of the Building"?

It does say that, yes.

NameUnavailable

I doubt they are painting the walls if they are not painted currently - firstly it would cost a lot more than £145 to paint a building and secondly that would be seen as 'improvement' rather than maintenance, which isn't usually allowed.

Are you sure there are no painted parts - lintels, window ledges etc? First question is to ask them is what parts are they painting.

Regardless of whether you own the freehold or have RTM on a flat, you still have to adhere to the terms and conditions of the lease, so let's say you have RTM and the lease says the exterior must be repainted every 5 years, then you would still have to do that, RTM isn't a way of avoiding having to pay for maintenance it just means you can choose who does it.

pannonica

I think you’re right actually, after looking at the items on the list a bit closer it seems like they’re just proposing painting some window sills and the back door and some other little bits (it seems - it’s not completely clear).

Which makes a bit more sense in a way, although it seems even more silly to go to such a massive expense on scaffolding for such minor bits of work. Once all their percentages plus VAT is added the cost of the scaffolding itself is actually over 10k.

I wonder if I should suggest other ways of going about this work without using scaffolding as going to this expense to put scaffolding around the whole building just to do a bit of paint and a minor cosmetic repair on a window sill seems completely crazy. The ground floor stuff obviously wouldn’t need scaffolding so it would all be just for a couple of little jobs on the first floor window. Surely there must be easier ways of doing that?

I don’t object to paying to maintain the exterior of the building at all, what I object to is having to pay hugely inflated prices. But it seems like RTM wouldn’t be an option in any case.

Simonon77

If it is just window sills, are they paintable from inside the property  with the window open? I doubt very much any decorators would think of scaffolding the whole building for such a small job if it wasn't the council paying them ! 

Simonon77

It also seems quite weird the stuff they have included on the letter they have sent. 4% profit for the contractors? really? I don't know any tradesmen who would work for a 4% profit, even on a £10K job.