PDC Debt recovery fees

StuChainz

Hi all,

In December, I am a leaseholder and wrote to Remus management to ask some questions about being abroad for 6 months. Unfortunately, this was on my work email which I can no longer access, and I didn't explicitly request all communication to come via email, only asked some info questions.

I then had a service charge due and wasn't aware as I've been out of the country since January. I have since had an email from PDC Debt management to say I owe the service charge plus £468 fees, with 68p interest added per day.

Clause 12 apparently stipulates I agreed for Remus to contact a third party to collect debts owed and fees - I don't currently have a copy available online but am working on it.

My question is, do I have a leg to stand on:

A) not paying, as they at no point contacted me via email, despite obviously having my email address which PDC used to contact me?

B) reducing the fees in court?

I have asked for a breakdown of fees 3 times, but they still haven't provided (only a nominal fee plus interest).

Let me know if you need any more info to answer, and thanks in advance

eddddy

StuChainz said

A) not paying, as they at no point contacted me via email, despite obviously having my email address which PDC used to contact me?

B) reducing the fees in court?

If you want to challenge this, the standard advice from leaseholder support organisations is "pay now, challenge later".

i.e. Pay the full amount including the £468.68, saying that you are doing so under protest, and saying that you might challenge this at a tribunal.

If you don't pay in full, further fees might be added, which you might end up having to pay.

If you do decide to challenge the £468.68 fee, it would be on the basis that the fee is "not reasonable". You would have to explain why the fee is "not reasonable". (There is no legal definition of "not reasonable".)

• Unless you specifically asked for the Service Charge bill to be emailed to you, and they failed to do so, I don't think you could argue that's unreasonable

• The fee should reflect the work done (i.e. be an hourly charge for work the management company did as a result of you not paying), plus any expenses they had to pay as a result of you not paying (e.g. solicitors fees, debt collectors fees)
• (You've rightly asked for a breakdown of the cost, and failing to provide one will reflect badly on them, if this ends up at tribunal.)
• (As an example, checking your account and sending you a reminder letter saying you haven't paid the bill might be 30mins work - so maybe the management company should charge you £40 or £50 for doing that.)

• Their actions should also be reasonable. For example, maybe they should send you warning letters before instructing solicitors or debt collectors, which would incur further costs.

The bottom line is, if the management company won't budge, you could take them to tribunal - you would explain why you think the Service Charge is "not reasonable", and they would explain why they think the Service Charge is "reasonable". And the tribunal would then decide.

Edit to add…

I guess you could also check whether you could win this on a "technicality" - for example, if the Service Charge bill wasn't compliant (e.g. it didn't show the landlords name and address, or it didn't include a summary of tenants rights and obligations.)

But tbh, I doubt that a professional management company would get that stuff wrong.

StuChainz

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82052586#Comment_82052586

thank you for this. I was hoping, like my recent ridiculous PCNs for parking in my own parking space, I could give my response and wait to see if they take me to court.

I'll look into paying later today and starting the tribunal process