Common roof repairs in factored building

[thisshittip]

I am the only owner/occupier in a block of 9.

All other residents rent from HA. I received a letter in March telling me my share of costs for common roof repairs, which included my specific dormers. So the letter stated my costs are £1685. Not ideal, but fair enough.

Letter states there will a meeting to discuss in due course and vote taken on whether to proceed.

At the start of August I received another letter, telling me costs, and that the intention is to include the costs in my March 2022 invoice.

Only the cost has now risen by £750. No explanation. I called and asked why, and was just told there was a miscalculation in the March letter.

I asked for a breakdown of these new costs and still haven't received.

Do I need to pay this second amount? There was no indication whatsoever in my first letter that it was only an estimate, and no explanation in the second of the increase.

Thanks!

I would want to see the quotes for the work. Who is undertaking it? The HA themselves?

The works went out to tender, and a contractor appointed.

I've asked for details of this new figure and not received. The meeting is tonight. And I'll be voting no until I see paperwork, but the HA hold the other 8 votes, so that means nothing

We had a similar thing with a council years ago. Owned a flat in a part council block. We took them to the leasehold valuation tribunal and won. Withheld the disputed payments in the interim. They treated owner occupiers like cash cows and manufactured invoices to suit them. the LVT put them through the mill and forced them to provide evidence of best value tenders etc.

Well done @Pbelle!

I wouldn't know where to begin with all of this. For a start, I'm in Scotland, so I think it's freehold up here? Not that I really k ow what that means.

I think I may have to try and speak to CAB or a property solicitor.

@thisshittip I think it's called the First-tier Tribunal in Scotland. It is actually fairly lay-person friendly. They are designed to help us minions defend ourselves against precisely this kind of crap. They used normal language, no legal understanding required, and were very - well - human. We represented ourselves. Worth a stab - good luck!

Just finished the meeting and apparently the second letter and figure were wrong. He's worked out it again and told me it's nearer the first amount (less actually, but he said it's a rough calculation).

He has no recollection of speaking to me before when I queried the second amount, when he told me there had been a miscalculation. He doesn't remember me asking for a breakdown of the new costs.

He actually asked me who I spoke to with me queries

So I've voted no for now, which does mean nothing. He will send me more information and I will take it from there.

I asked about payment if all goes ahead. He suggested i could start a pre-payment plan now, even though the works aren't due for weeks and I barely know or trust what I'm paying for 🤷‍♀️

I asked what the cycle of preventative maintenance has been up until now. He couldn't tell me.

So a farce, so far!

Not a lawyer but I've been here and also I work in a related field.

It sounds like, not unusually, your factor is either dodgy or a bit of a disaster organisationally. In future it would probably be sensible to communicate via email so you have everything in writing. Is the factor the HA themselves or a separate company? You can replace a bad factor though in your case you'd need the HA on side to make it happen.

Unfortunately it's not at all unbelievable that the costs have gone up now they've gone out to tender - Brexit and the pandemic have caused all sorts of supply chain issues and construction prices have become ridiculous. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask to see the tender though so you can see for yourself.

As a first step I would write to the factor, cc'ing the HA, to ask for all the missing information - the actual tender costs plus any admin fees they will add on top, the costs provided by the other 2 companies they also asked to tender so you can see if it's in the right ballpark (they should be getting at least 3 prices or providing a good explanation as to why not), details of the work required and how they've reached the conclusion it needs doing, and details of the preventative maintenance they've been doing in the meantime (probably none). This tells them that you're going to be a very polite pain in the arse so they need to pull their socks up, and might also encourage the HA to look a bit more closely at what they're paying for.

We were recently asked to pay an even larger sum than you for major works which it turned out we didn't need - we'd had a minor repair done and the company doing the work, who must have been quiet at the time, had told the factor we needed a lot more. Rather than actually applying any of their own knowledge and experience to assess whether that was true, they just passed on the (one) quote and told us we'd need to pay. We did not.

Remember the factor works for you - this isn't an English situation where you're just a leaseholder, you own one ninth of this building and even if you're limited by the HA ownership of the other flats there's no reason you shouldn't have a full and detailed explanation of what you're being asked to pay for.