Seriously need help - PROPERTY MANAGEMENT AGENCIES

[iamamummy]

Hi there il try and make this as easy to read as i can but it is quite an in depth case but just need some general direction and where to go from here.

Dp rents out a flat and there have been a number of disputes over the management company, so some years back it came to a head and he refused to pay them anymoney unless he saw some proof of accounts. This company have not maintained the building whatsoever and it is in such a sorry state, another flat owner in the building has owned his for 20+ years and has not see the building maintained in this time. There are 7 flat owners in total and most carried on paying extortionate service charges and not knowing where the money was being spent. Despite trying to make contact and writing letters some years ago to resolve the issue and after receiving several threatening letters about being taken to court which never progressed we heard nothing.

Now in recent months the contact has sparked up again from them as they have changed their company name, still run by the same people and yet again they are threatening court action and we have received a letter in the post to sign giving permission for them to seek the money from our mortgage lender. which we shall not be doing.

Can these people seriously get away with this? they are receiving extortionate amounts of money and god knows what they are spending it on.

We have had some legal people look into the companies and the freeholder of the building has a credit rating of 4% and the company they have created to "manage" the building which is relatively new has an 84% rating.

All of the flat owners are now refusing to pay as this new company has taken over and has apparently had surveys carried out etc and is expecting each of us to pay £12,000 to bring the property up to scratch when it should have been maintained in the first place and not let go to ruin.

can anyone advise where to go? what to do?

thanks

this has been very very brief it is a lot more in depth but id be here all day writing it out.

Take some legal advice now.

Leaseholds are a complex area of law and if you fail to pay the service charge you risk defaulting and losing your proeprty.

Please call the Leasehold Advisory Service (experts in the field funded by central gov to provide free legal advice to leaseholders)or email via their website on www.lease-advice.org/

www.landlordzone.com

try the forums there- long leasehold. v helpful

agree you need to maintain the terms of your lease.

Hi I am a solicitor and will try to help you. In a nutshell before charging service charge like this you should have been served with various notices and you would have had an opportunity to comment/suggest cheaper quotes. if those notices have not been served then you only have a mimum liability to pay.

going forward - if there are 7 flats and al of you feel this way you can make an application to manage the block yourselves.

As someone else said it is complex and the legislation is also quite complex so you'd need proper advice. Hope it goes well

We live in a block of 14 flats - we've had the same issue - it's very common.

Look at your lease - it will tell you whether your home is at risk if you get into arrears. Our lease stipulates that non payment of ground rent would put our home at risk and also non payment of service charge becomes rent arrears and also puts home at risk.So watch it.

If you have evidenced our contact with them - why not apply to the LVT - they are sympthathetic to lease holders.

In our case - we constanty battled with the agents who blatantly ignored the tersm of our lease on billing, timescales for paying, submission of accounts, consulting us on expenditure over a certain amount. They were constantly threatening us.

1. Look at your lease to see your position in relation to non payment.
2. Get the flat owners together to see if you can go to Tribunal as a group.
3. Then do Right to Manage - you need 50% +1 to agree to it then you do it (sadly in our case our resident association looked into going down the road of buyuing the freehold and I got fed waiting them to help me take forward RTM so now we're stuck with crap managing agents still).

I'm happy to email you with what we've done in detail if you give me your email. I was secretary of our Residents's association.