New build estate service charges

clumsymumsy1

Hello,

I purchased my house 18months ago on an estate started around 2018. It was built by Persimmon and the site is currently managed by RMG. We have to pay an annual maintenance charge of around £300 and the flats on the estate pay (a lot) more for other management and service fees. 

We all feel the rates are inflated and constantly query the costs. 

I was just wondering if anyone knows how we go about buying RMG out of the management and managing it ourselves? I would be willing to do all the organising but just wondered legally and financially what we would have to do. 

TIA

LongoBongo

Folk on our estate have looked at doing this, we’re Taylor Wimpey and RMG, similar costs to yourselves. I assume you've got +80 houses and some open spaces/parks. It would end up being a full-time job for someone who would end up getting involved in a load of toxic disputes (dog poo, kids playing football, parking disputes, planning permissions, play park maintenance) to maybe save folk you don’t care about £50-100. Added to that you’ll probably have split-ownerships and social housing groups to contend with plus a mixture of freehold and leasehold.

 It’s a brave person who wants to take all that on on their doorstep. You would probably have to buy the land off the developer as well, if they’ve not already sold it to a third party. That would need funding and you’d need to run it as a business with tax returns etc… Every time someone buys and sells you’d need to produce a report as well. People just think groups like RMG sort out someone to cut the grass 6 times a year but there's far more to it than that..

Southend_2

Assuming this is an estate rentcharge rather than a leasehold, there are very few legal rights. There is no right to take over the estate management. You could complain to the rentcharge owner but they may choose to ignore you. Don't be tempted to stop paying, you could end up with a lease on your home that effectively makes it worthless if you wanted to sell. Some slightly improved legal rights are on the way following legislation passed very recently.

eddddy

clumsymumsy1 said:

We have to pay an annual maintenance charge of around £300 and the flats on the estate pay (a lot) more for other management and service fees. 

Is your house leasehold or freehold? (I assume the flats are leasehold.)

The flat owners have the legal right to take over management of their building - it's called "Right To Manage".

Leaseholders (of houses and flats) also have the right to challenge service charges as a tribunal, if the charges aren't reasonable. So you could do that if your house is leasehold, but not if it's freehold.


But if the leaseholders successfully challenge the service charge at tribunal, it might result in lower charges for freeholders too.


Apart from that, it's a case of looking at the deed/contract you signed when you bought the property, to see if it gives home owners any rights to take over management 

eurobabe

I'm in an estate built by another developer but the original managing agent was RMG.They were charging for an.estate charge for a similar amount.myself and a few other residents who also had to pay the charge became resident directors.we then could get to grips with the finances better and checked when RMG's contract ended.Got tenders in from other managing agents then got rid if RMG when their contracted expire and took on a new agent.We now pay around £100 a year the site is well maintained and the agent doesn't rip off residents and is easy to work with.
It's a bit of additional work being a director but it enables you to have better control over the finances.The daily running is done by the agent and directors check and approve the yearly budget, also sign off the accounts and have a say in what the estate gets charged for.