AIBU to be absolutely devastated by this?

I'm sorry you are going through this, OP. How awful. All your hopes and your finances - equally painful - hauled over coals and slowly drained, it's terrible and you have my full sympathy.

I'd just like to know the reasons that the harsh twats who have decided you ABU are basing it on?
Having less themselves and wanting to remind you that there are people homeless, etc. I would think. Ridiculous. What help is that?! Someone will be along to say they want to swap problems if you wait long enough.

You are definitely not being unreasonable, and I really hope you find a solution that works and isn't too devastating. 💐

Hmmm... I had a feeling it would be someone I knew!

HML are an amalgamation of lots of other property management companies that have been bought out by the HML group. As a result, some are better than others. HML have themselves now been bought out by a bigger company and I have seen a deterioration in the accounting records of even the better agents.

It seems to be a case of the originally poor offices are still rubbish and the good ones are somehow being dragged down to their levels.

That said, there are a lot of challenges in the industry as a whole at the moment. With the amount of development and blocks of flats being built, there is a tonne of work for managing agents to do, but their ability to recruit and/or train decent quality staff is a massive issue industry wide.

I know you're hopefully going to get rid of it at auction, but if you can't, definitely keep exploring the RTM angle, but definitely also consider following it up from a perspective of whether the costs are reasonable.

Ballymore??

I feel for you. Companies like this are taking the piss.

That's absolutely shocking, OP, I really hope you get a resolution to this.
Absolutely criminal - I can't believe it's so unregulated (well, I can, I just don't want to believe it).

I would write to all the owners and get together with a joint action,
As a landlord myself, I have to justify any charges levied on my tenants.
power is in group of you , time consuming I know but with so much money at stake
I’d go for it

I’m so sorry this is happening to you. It sounds awful. I remember listening years ago to a program on radio 4 about how unethical management companies were. We had a non-existent “gutter cleaner” which was included in our ground rent. I couldn’t wait to leave there… is there anyway you can go public with this, to someone like Martin Lewis? Also write to Winifred Robinson @ You and Yours at BBC Radio 4 - they deal with all sorts of scams like this. I would definitely go public it’s daylight robbery. Sending you love.

OP - please feel free to message me if you’d like a virtual hand hold at any point.
i forgot to add to my previous post about my flat that there was a Japanese knotweed problem as well as unfavourable rent review clause in my lease and I still sold it despite the £30k extra in the service charge. I was very upfront from the start with the estate agent and sold to a foreign cash buyer. I don’t regret it for a second. Not a second.

And who the hell are the 7% who think YABU!!

Yes. So sorry to hear of this outrageous situation @Haveyouseenthischicken Not sure whether anyone's mentioned this in advice already what about looking here for advice too https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/

Have you thought about renting out your flat? x

Can't you just raise the rent to cover the mortgage and service charge and then it's not costing you anything?

What happens if you refuse to pay it?

If you refuse to pay your service charge the freeholder can obtain a repossession order and take your flat away from you. They're then free to sell the leasehold again and use the funds to pay the outstanding service charges and pocket any extra for themselves.

That's insane! I can't believe that they are allowed to effectively double the cost of your service in the space of a year! There should be a restriction on how much they can increase the % in the same way that there would be for council tax.

I bought a house in 2020 and that service charge is getting close to the cost of my mortgage. I don't know how they expect people to pay that on top of a mortgage. Seems very exploitative.

Is that even legal?

I'm so sorry op, this would have me on the ledge too. I know it won't help, but please try to remember you're still better off than most other 31 year olds in the country.

Lol what? They are already renting it out

Still better off than most 31 year olds? I'm sure that will be a huge comfort to the OP. NOT. She isn't better off. Many 31 year olds still live in their parental home saving for their future with reduced/no rent to pay to the parents. This OP's financial circumstances have taken a big battering from a significantly increased service charge. I said it up thread but hope OP or others in the situation catch bbc Rip Off Britain, series 16, ep 4 which has a segment at start of programme on how someone in similar position got the charges reduced

Thanks for the sarcastic comment, was that just to make me feel shit? At least my comment was genuinely said out of concern for someone's misfortune and trying to be realistic. Youre comment wasn't needed.

This is really bad news and unfortunate. But you are still really lucky and need to hold onto that thought, you can't give up. I can't even believe its legal. Do you have to reveal the 7-9k increase to potential buyers?

Of course they do and potential buyers will easily discover that anyway!

@Haveyouseenthischicken As well as @GranPepper excellent suggestion re BBC Rip Off and it may well be worth contacting BBC. Radio 4 You and Yours and Moneybox Live, both address leasehold unfairnesses and iniquities and can and do intervene successfully on consumers' behalf

Here's a link to a Moneybox Live prog from Jan this year but there are many items on leasehold in both programnes www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001yhz6?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

My comment wasn't intended to be sarcastic. It was a reaction to your unfortunate one when OP is struggling with significant financial troubles, out of concern for the OP. To your question, yes the OP will have to disclose the service charges. There would be a disclosure document exchanged between seller and buyer Solicitors and you are required to be truthful on it

I suppose that even if you sell at 230k you will at least still get 50k back. You will lose 30k of your initial deposit, but it could be worse. At least you won't be in negative equity with debt. Buying property is a risk, and there's always the possibility that the value could go down (for a whole variety of reasons) as well as up.

There was another thread recently about how the building of 'affordable housing' in an area negatively affects the value of existing properties.

First off I’m really sorry to hear that you’re in this position. It’s truly dreadful.

There’s a lot of advice on this thread, but I hope that this helps to clarify some of it.

The Building Safety Act 2022 is a very new and complex piece of legislation. Professionals are still grappling with it. It’s virtually impossible for a lay person to navigate. The Act distinguishes between, on the one hand, costs payable to remediate EXISTING defects in buildings - for which the principle is that by and large tenants shouldn’t pay, and tenants receive certain protections (though the application of the rules can be complex) - and, on the other hand, FUTURE costs payable by what is known as the “Accountable Person” for the building to ensure that the building is duly registered with the Building Safety Regulator and that the Regulator has all the information to be able to monitor that the building STAYS safe going forwards. These costs CAN be recharged to tenants. The legal authority for this is s30D of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which was inserted by section 112 of the Building Safety Act.

The requirement to apply for a building safety case report for a higher-risk building is part of the costs that can be charged for via the service charge. Because it is a new requirement, there is a lot of uncertainty around what the regulator will require, and often the regulator will come back and ask for more documentation. It is not a quick or straightforward process, and most Accountable Persons would hire professionals to assist them with this. Those professional fees can also be recharged to tenants.

That’s not to say that the normal protections that tenants have around their service charge do not also apply to these costs (eg the option to challenge in Tribunal etc) - I haven’t actually looked into this point, but let’s assume that they can. But there isn’t much precedent for how much it “should” cost to prepare a building safety case, because it’s such a new requirement and the regulator keeps moving the goalposts. So the Tribunal may not have much to go on.

Many people have advised going down the route of clubbing together to buy your freehold, or exercising the right to manage. Aside from the fact that it sounds like you want to be rid of this flat asap, rather than get more involved, I would really counsel caution before doing either of these things. The fact that your building is a “higher-risk building” for the purposes of the Building Safety Act impacts this decision considerably. The compliance requirements under the Act are extremely onerous. They are difficult for even commercial landlords with the benefit of expensive advisors to comply with. A tenant run body would have to engage external consultants in order to stand a hope of complying. It would be massively time consuming, and carries the risk of criminal penalties if you get it wrong. Those who have advocated exercising these rights probably are not in a higher-risk building.

As you can probably tell, I have some industry knowledge, but I promise you I’m not a property developer/investor/landlord/managing agent or anything like that!

Good luck

And in plain English?
Taking into account the OP is an owner not a landlord or tenant, from what I understand