Lease and MA's refusal to observe

eddddy

KoalaMSEF said:

After all, interpretations differ, even among judges. 

If the lease is ambiguous about maintenance and repair responsibilities, your solicitor really should have picked that up before you purchased. And the current owner's solicitor should have picked that up before they purchased.

But obviously, it's possible that the solicitors missed it. And cases like this do sometimes turn up at tribunal or court.


Additionally, you can apply to a tribunal for a mandatory lease variation under Section 35 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 in the following circumstances:



For example, that might apply if the lease doesn't indicate who is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the doors and frames, etc.

But it's not clear if that's relevant in your case.

KoalaMSEF said:

It is a lot more expensive to go all the way to the legal, unless you are really really angry and/or out of principle. 

Yep. 'Going legal' over any dispute with anyone can be onerous  - that includes disputes with plumbers, car repairers, retailers, etc

KoalaMSEF

eddddy said:

For example, that might apply if the lease doesn't indicate who is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the doors and frames, etc.

But it's not clear if that's relevant in your case.

Thanks for your comments. 

The onus is on us when engaging with a solicitor. I had my fair share. It really depends. They have their 'biases,' depending on their work experience, and the quality of their work sometimes does not related to their titles or qualifications. Trusting them blindly is costly in some cases and they take no responsibilities as they 'advise' and we decide. 

It is not clear. The issue is this is a fire door. Fire door is subjected to additional regulations, in some cases, freeholders need to give written consent; in other cases, it could void the building insurance policy for unauthorised repair replacement. I suspect that's why the lease reserves its repair and replacement to the management company in the property section because it is a Fire door. 

The issue (very minor) was reported by us because the management company did not come to check our doors despite that they said they would according to the fire safety regulations. The regulation defines the management company as the Responsible Persons, which the management company denied at first. Even they finally admitted they are responsible, they 'interpreted' the regulation as they are responsible for forcing residents to repair the fire door. 

We have pointed out that the lease reserves the fire door repair replacement to the management company. The management company has combed through the lease but they couldn't find anything that release them from the clause. 

At the moment, the management company agreed that they are the Responsible Persons but they said - it is a lot more expensive for them to do it, it's cheaper for us to do it. As it being said, in the last financial year, they invoiced us that worth 50% of our annual service charge to balance their book in one go. 

The lease is drafted before the Grenfell. For now, it doesn't affect the functionality. But I am just curious about this type of things. There is no problem to pay for somebody to repair it if it is our responsibilities. Equally, we would not want to get into any further disputes about authorisation/liability etc because this is a fire door and the lease reserves its repair replacement to the management company. We will see. 

eddddy

You haven't really explained the basic facts, so it's hard to comment.

For example, you need to outline the facts something like in this hypothetical example:

"There are 20 flats in our block.  The managing agents have told all 20 leaseholders to upgrade their flat entrance doors to be fire doors.

We think the the cost of the upgrade should by covered by service charge funds because..."

m0bov

You really need to speak to the freeholder. The MA is their agent and works for them.

KoalaMSEF

eddddy said:

You haven't really explained the basic facts, so it's hard to comment.

For example, you need to outline the facts something like in this hypothetical example:

"There are 20 flats in our block.  The managing agents have told all 20 leaseholders to upgrade their flat entrance doors to be fire doors.

We think the the cost of the upgrade should by covered by service charge funds because..."

That's fine. 

Hypothesis can be very simple, but it forces you to cast a case in a particular light. This may or may not benefit, depending on your audience. This is based on the assumption that reality is complex and multifaceted. 

Casting the case in your example is like preparing an argument for the tribunal or court and the advice needed is to check the soundness of the argument. 

Anyway, it is still a very useful conversation, in addition to other chats I have with legal professionals and complaint procedures I am following. Pure curiosity on other people's experience, hence this post. We will see. 

KoalaMSEF

m0bov said:

You really need to speak to the freeholder. The MA is their agent and works for them.

Thanks! You are right. I did resolve other issues with MA through freeholder.