Grasping ground rent demand

[rempy]

We have a leasehold house. Oop North. Looooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggggg lease.

So the ground rent is the grand sum of £5.75 a year.

But the demand letter arrived today, and the ground rent is presented with a pre-added "administration fee" of a further £10 if the actual ground rent is not paid by December.

So you glance at the paperwork, and the total balance is presented as £15.75. But if you pay in the next 3 months, you only owe £5.75.

This is unreasonable isn't it? Because unless you are really paying attention, you'll accidentally pay an unwarranted admin fee, that is twice the actual rent.

Can I take the letter to someone? HMRC? Citizens Advice? It's a bit off....

But you did notice, so will only pay the lower amount? Misses the point completely

Yes, I did.

But it is written in such a way that I can see that others could very easily not.

And be properly ripped off.

Run it by someone at the CAB, there may be a regulation about the size of the type or something to prevent the figures being misleading.

Ah, so they still exist! I thought Mumsnet might have put them out of business! I'll send it to them.

The lease will say when it is due; usually 25 December and 24 June. In practice the working day before, this year 24 June. Send them a postal order for £5.75 to arrive before 24 December and tell them that you will pay no more. You will not hear again.

As with everything in life - read the small print - TWICE.

It seems that you did so no problem, but yes it's probably written unclearly deliberately so that they catch some people out.

I have my wits about me, I hope, but it's not okay to smugly say: 'Oh well. If you don't read the small print, more fool you.'

These people are con artists. If they knocked on a door and bamboozled an old person for outrageously-priced double glazing we'd be furious. Or should be, unless we're the kind of person who blames the pensioner for not putting on their reading glasses.

It's not just morally wrong to do this, but it might be illegal - there are laws about this kind of thing for a very good reason.

So good on you for thinking of other tenants even though you've noticed it and have refused to pay.

What andrewofgg seems a good idea. And yes, CAB or [[http://www.lease-advice.org/ these people, who are brilliant]].

I had a headleaseholder who'd do this kind of thing. She'd also send us wildly inflated and made-up bills with E&OE on the bottom.

I had to look it up - it means Errors and Omissions Excepted and is a disclaimer to excuse accidental errors. I'm not sure of its legal status but I'm pretty sure it it's intended to excuse genuine oversights, not fraud. She was mental.

I'd go through completely garbled invoices crossing stuff off and annotating with reasons not to pay or asking for clarification and then send a fraction of the demand.

Sometimes she'd accept it and sometimes she'd threaten to take me to court - she once sent a county court summons, which she revised twice after receiving my defence. That's a breach of court rules and they should have rejected it, but they let it go ahead before finally chucking it out in total.

I fucking hate these people.