Estate management fees

LongoBongo

Hi, not sure if this is the right area of the forum. We live on a Taylor Wimpey estate with RMG as the managing agents for the grass and parks etc… We pay about £300 a year, there’s about 150 houses. For the purposes of this post that’s all fine, not debating that. The question I and others have is should we be paying maintenance fees as TW are still working on the estate?

The last house was finished over 5 years ago, since then we’ve had almost 6 years of constant repairs as they’ve had to replace the sewers and roads whilst we’ve all been living here, they started before covid and there's still about a year to go, it’s a total nightmare. TW keep moving around the site ripping up roads and kerbs and part of that has trashed the public open spaces, which in fairness they’ve tidied back up. The roads and sewers won’t be adopted until all the works are finished.

My question is should we be paying any management fees at all as TW and their contractors haven’t yet finished on site? Thanks

Bookworm105

read your management agent's contract 

eddddy

It probably depends on what terms you agreed to pay the estate management charge.

Your agreement to pay estate management charges will probably be in your house purchase contract and/or a Deed of Covenant you signed when you purchased the property.

The contract and/or deed should say when the estate management charge starts to be payable.

(You can also check if there are any terms that RMG has breached - which might justify a claim for a reduced management charge.)

daveyjp

I'd also be asking if the estate isn't finished what the money is being spent on.

LongoBongo

Thanks for the replies. I’m no expert but I've looked through the contract document and the only thing I can find is:

 

"TO HOLD the same for the Term paying the Rent and the Maintenance Charge the first payment of which (or proportionate part thereof) to be made on the date hereof"

 

I assume that just means we have to pay it from the date we moved in (which we have) and any ongoing works on site are irrelevant.

daveyjp

They aren't irrelevant if it means what you are paying for isn't being done.  Thats why you need to know where the money is currently going.  I doubt RMG would take responsibility for managing a site until it has reached practical completion.

LongoBongo

daveyjp said:

They aren't irrelevant if it means what you are paying for isn't being done.  Thats why you need to know where the money is currently going.  I doubt RMG would take responsibility for managing a site until it has reached practical completion.

Thanks Dave - RMG are doing the management, cutting the grass and stuff, it all gets done, I was just principally checking if the residents should be paying whilst TW and the contractors are still working on the site. Many of the residents feel it should be covered entirely by TW until they leave the site so we just wanted to know if there was a hard and fast rule that might have put the onus on TW to pay, sadly it seems not.

user1977

LongoBongo said:

Thanks for the replies. I’m no expert but I've looked through the contract document and the only thing I can find is:

"TO HOLD the same for the Term paying the Rent and the Maintenance Charge the first payment of which (or proportionate part thereof) to be made on the date hereof"

That doesn't sound like the contract you're quoting from. We mean the sale/purchase contract between you and Wimpey, not the title deeds.

saajan_12

LongoBongo said:

daveyjp said:

They aren't irrelevant if it means what you are paying for isn't being done.  Thats why you need to know where the money is currently going.  I doubt RMG would take responsibility for managing a site until it has reached practical completion.

Thanks Dave - RMG are doing the management, cutting the grass and stuff, it all gets done, I was just principally checking if the residents should be paying whilst TW and the contractors are still working on the site. Many of the residents feel it should be covered entirely by TW until they leave the site so we just wanted to know if there was a hard and fast rule that might have put the onus on TW to pay, sadly it seems not.

There's no principle that a certain border for 'the estate' which is outside your property should be complete of all 'initial' construction before service charges apply.. how do you define the border? what if there's repairs from snagging? what if there's future improvement in 20 years time? 
Just thinking about how such a principle could be defined shows how impossible it is. 

The only possibility is if "normally" you'd pay for a road or a lawn to be maintained and that doesn't exist yet as its being built. Or normally you'd pay for cleaning of an area which is continually filled with building rubble. 

35har1old

saajan_12 said:

LongoBongo said:

daveyjp said:

They aren't irrelevant if it means what you are paying for isn't being done.  Thats why you need to know where the money is currently going.  I doubt RMG would take responsibility for managing a site until it has reached practical completion.

Thanks Dave - RMG are doing the management, cutting the grass and stuff, it all gets done, I was just principally checking if the residents should be paying whilst TW and the contractors are still working on the site. Many of the residents feel it should be covered entirely by TW until they leave the site so we just wanted to know if there was a hard and fast rule that might have put the onus on TW to pay, sadly it seems not.

There's no principle that a certain border for 'the estate' which is outside your property should be complete of all 'initial' construction before service charges apply.. how do you define the border? what if there's repairs from snagging? what if there's future improvement in 20 years time? 
Just thinking about how such a principle could be defined shows how impossible it is. 

The only possibility is if "normally" you'd pay for a road or a lawn to be maintained and that doesn't exist yet as its being built. Or normally you'd pay for cleaning of an area which is continually filled with building rubble. 

At the time of purchase it should have been highlighted what area's where to be maintained by management company 

RelievedSheff

The estate management fee pays for areas of the estate which are not to be adopted.

The highways and sewers will be being adopted by the local highways authority and the local water authority.

The works ongoing on site will be what are required by the local highways and water authorities to bring the assets up to standard for adoptions and are nothing to do with the management company areas.

So should you be paying the estate management charges? Yes you should.