Management company fees charged on random schedule

cupotea333

I own a leasehold flat. The management fees are (predictably) outlandish but my main problem is with the random billing schedule.

For 14 years we got monthly bills. Suddenly last year I got a bill for 5 months to be paid in advance. 5 months later I got a bill to be paid for 3 months in advance. Today I got a bill for the period March 2026 to September 2026 to be paid up front.

Are they allowed to do this? I haven't located paperwork to do with the leasehold to check any info about billing schedules but surely it can't be right that they can charge so far ahead all of a sudden? This is making it challenging to manage my finances - having to find an unexpected £1400 this month. And what's to stop them for asking for 12 months or more upfront?

Has anyone experienced this and is it allowed by law?

eddddy

When you say "management fees", I guess you mean "Service Charges".

Your lease should specify how and when service charges should be paid.

But tbh, most leases say that estimated service charges are must be paid 12 months in advance or 6 months in advance.

And then there's an adjustment at the end of the year, if the estimate was too high or too low.

A few leases specify monthly payments - but more often the lease says 12 months or 6 months in advance, but the management company voluntarily offer leaseholders a 'side deal' allowing them to pay monthly (sometimes for an extra fee).

So I guess it's possible that your management company used to voluntarily offer a 'side deal' for monthly payments - but now they've reverted to 6 months in advance, as specified in the lease.

But that's just a guess - you need to check your lease and/or ask the management company to explain.

MyRealNameToo

Our lease requires us to pay the service fees in advance 6 monthly and inevitably there is a true up after the year ends to deal with the delta between advance fees and actual fees.

When the bill actually comes however can be variable, sometimes we get 3, the two advance and the true up and other times they delay the second to be able to incorporate the true up but then the next advanced happens at the normal time so only 3-4 months after the last one.

Starting point is to see what your lease says, this is what can be enforced through the courts/tribunials, obviously both parties being adults can agree amoungst themselves to do something other than what the lease says if both sides agree which would imply both see a benefit of doing it -v- what the contract says.