I live in a freehold house on a new build estate. Our road has been adopted by the council, however we are expected to pay twice a year for a maintenance company.
They are mainly there for the flats, but for the houses they are meant to cover;
Insurances for pavements and parking spaces
Maintenance to shared borders and pavements
A new company took over before Christmas, when the gardening was somewhat lacking with grass overgrown and weeds taking over the pavements and borders. I emailed including pics. They promised to sort it out, we paid on time.
6 months on, not one single visit from a gardener. The site is looking like a mess. Another bill comes through, I email to query why they've done nothing in 6 months. Apologetic email back, they're getting new gardeners. Week later residents meeting with management company. Never been before, but there are many cross residents expressing their awful service. Apparently they didn't pay the previous gardeners and have the money (a few grand) sitting in an account.
Anyway, until today (at least 3 weeks on) no maintenance what so ever. Today spotted a bare minimum done, HOWEVER they have not mowed the opposite side of the road as apparently thats council territory. I mean it's a tiny space and the weeds are wrecking the pavements.
Same day we get a red reminder. Reminder claims if we don't pay this time we will have a dept collectors after us. They have seriously done next to nothing.
We can pay, but feel resentful giving such a lazy management company anything, especially when we are overlooking the side of the road that's totally ignored. What would you do? I'm wondering if we could claim they breached their contract in not maintaining for soo long?
I looked at reviews for the company online and it's really bad.