I live in a flat that I am buying, it's in a smallish building with 5 other flats. We each pay a monthly building maintenance charge of over £130 - this is for communal garden upkeep, cleaning of communal area (they pop in and hoover the stairs each month), maintenance of the bin area (never seen anyone do anything!) and insurance. Toward the end of last year they said it was time to re-decorate the communal area and sent through 2 quotes they'd obtained for painting the walls and gave a deadline for us to give comments. Both quotes were similar so I didn't bother to get in touch. We were told the cost would be paid for from funds that had been set aside for decorating. Anyway, painters came, were here a couple of days painting the walls and that was that.
I've now received a 'defecit' invoice from them for over £100 due to the 'major repairs being higher than budgeted'. Other flats in the building will have had the same - so an extra £600+ higher than budgeted just to paint the walls?! They included a copy of the accounts in with the invoice but seem to make it as difficult as possible to understand - just figures everywhere.
To add insult, the invoice is dated 2nd March - received on 7th - with invoice due date of 13th! I can't pay it until I get paid at the end of the month so they'll just have to wait.
Don't know whether to just be annoyed but pay it and move on or actually query it. I expect there's something written in all of our contracts somewhere that states we are liable for any overspend - just seems so unfair.
Does anyone have any experience of this?