Can a freeholder really do this?! HUGE bill

[SapphosRock]

Lived in the same flat for the past 10 years. I'm a leaseholder.

Pay a bi-annual service charge of around £1,000 to a property management company that does very little. Had some occasional, necessary repairs.

Received the usual £1k bill this month alongside an additional £7.5k for 'decoration of rear elevation'.

I don't think this has been done, I certainly haven't noticed anything being decorated.

Can I contest it? Can I ask that they don't do it?

There are 4 flats in the building, two of the flats are rented out and 1 is empty so I am the only owner who lives there.

I don't have £8.5k :( I have £5k of savings that has taken me years to save and I am gutted if it all has to go on this.

Any advice?

The cost is possibly bumped up by the cost of scaffolding?

Our block is going to be painted using a cherry picker which is significantly less costly than scaffolding. There are four floors plus the ground floor.

Something similar happened to my parents except the bill was £35,000 per flat!!! The residents got together, sacked the management company, found a new one, one resident with surveying experience supervised the gathering of new quotes (the work was necessary fireproofing after a change in the law), and it came down to about £8k per flat, all of which is recoupable from the government under some scheme.

So DO challenge it. Although if it's a tall Victorian property and the work is repointing, it will be expensive. We need to have our house repointed and it's shockingly expensive even for our little Victorian workers cottage.

Also ask about the management company's sinking fund and how much money they have in it for your property. They're supposed to stash money for this very thing. My parents' whole complex had new windows put in about 15 years ago and the money came from the sinking fund.

Some really great advice on this thread, thank you. I have paid at least £22k to the management company since moving in.

We've had roof repairs and plastering done after a leak but surely that should come out of buildings insurance?

The communal hallway has been painted and carpeted once but aside from that I can't think of anything the money would go towards.

the LAS are good

But before you do this

Look at your lease to see what it says about regular redecoration

Look at all the correspondence from the mgmt co on this matter

Maybe there isn't any, but they might have sent quotes with the initial letter

I have lived in places where residents appear surprised by what's happening because they didn't read what was sent.

If your DP forgot the section 20, is it possible he didn't note any other correspondence, especially if you're going through bad times in other ways, that can happen.

The management company will be able to tell you if it was covered by insurance or not.

if you no longer have your copy of the yearly accounts, you can ask them for a copy & also for details of invoices paid, so you can see what the money is spent on.

I would guess it is mostly spent on insurance, maybe window cleaning, gardening of communal areas, electricity for internal lights as well as any fire equipment maintenance and any small repairs.

Coming at this from the other side - having once been the poor mug trying to organise repairs for a block of flats (shared freehold): buildings need repairs. If you own a property, you need to plan for this.

It's easy to say that the management company do nothing for their money, and that may be true, but £2k doesn't go far these days. Presumably - given that you say that you pay them £2k a year and have paid £22k in total - you have lived in the flat for 11 years? If this is the first time you have had to pay out more than £2k, you have done really well.

Definitely ask for accounts and proof that the work has been done, but you need to plan for expenses of this type, going forward. For this bill, if the amount of equity you have in the flat has increased during your ownership, adding the cost to your mortgage may be a cost-effective option, rather than a standalone loan, though obviously it depends on how quickly you might be able to pay it off.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow I've been that person too

I chose leasehold for my next one so the residents could argue with a mgmt co and freeholder rather than me!

It was in the lease about redecoration and the other shared freeholders opted not to have a sink fund but then freaked out about things like roof repair costs. Grr...

I would guess it is mostly spent on insurance, maybe window cleaning, gardening of communal areas, electricity for internal lights as well as any fire equipment maintenance and any small repairs.

We pay for our own window cleaning and there is no garden. Re fire equipment, the fire escape is a rusty death trap ladder at the back of the flat. Maybe updating that counts as decorating the rear elevation?

^Partner opened it and forgot to tell me.^

So you have a partner who is not financially savvy.....

This would be a BIG FUCKING DEAL for me.

He needs to get his ass in gear.

Ask to see the accounts for the freehold, we had a management company try and land us with a 10k bill per flat because "there wasn't enough in the sink fund" except when we looked at the accounts there was enough to cover the entire repair (sold the flat and that "very urgent repair" has still yet to be done).

They have to give you a full breakdown of the invoice.

Do you mind sharing details of your freeholder or your maintenance company?

We had a leasehold flat, had to pay a large sum for works to be done, they were done, badly.

They actually said that rather than get the contractor back to fix it, they would retender for a new contractor to fix it.

We sold it after that.

Echoing PPs, you need to see accounts to see what is in the reserve fund and where your annual charges are being spent. You don't want to wipe out the reserves and start again from zero, but if there's a healthy amount you could suggest some of it is used so that your additional bill is reduced. Also ask about options for a payment plan rather than lump sum.

Also ask how this is being apportioned between each flat, it may be that the lease of the basement flat says there's no liability for the roof?

Sure: www.jonathanrolls.com

Have you asked them for any explanation? I think you probably should, before publishing their details like that.