Maintenance Bill

markodude01

Hi,
I hope I have posted this in the right place, if not I apologise.

I recently received a bill from the maintenance company that looks after the block of flats where I stay. We pay them £39 per month. The bill is for new smoke vent windows that have replaced the old ones, which according to them no longer met with new regulations and said that if anything went wrong our insurance companies would not pay out. Normally I would have no problem with this if it was simply a safety issue. However this was done without anybody in the block knowing anything about it until we received a bill for £349.00 per flat. Can they do this as none of the residents gave permission for the work to be carried out?
Secondly a few years ago we complained about these windows not being safe, at that time the building was still under 10 years old and covered under the HBC. So way has the work been carried out the first year the cover has finished. A neighbour of mine enquired about the recent bill and received a copy of the quote from the company that carried out the work and it was dated 2005. So why have they waited this long if they got the job priced over 2 years ago? I personal think they have waited till our HBC cover has ran out so they can make their cut off of us.

Any advise on this matter would be great.

Mark