help ... advice needed on home move

[connyflower]

sorry if this gets bit long winded just desperate for advice! trying to sell my flat, shared block , 2 byers have dropped out due to our management company telling buyers solicitors not to go ahead with the sale as there is an on going dispute with the charges they are putting on residents! we pay £800 per year for them to manage the block, so any repair work should come out of the fund, but everytime work gets carried out they send us a bill which all the residents are disputing as where is our £800 going, just had a bill for £3500 for roof to be fixed faciers and internal decor! thats per flats at 15 flats? so because of dispute our management company is putting buyers off buying our property! its becoming a nightmare, been reading for mums net for a while now , and advice is great , please can you help me, i'm really stuck, thanks

any advice out there, what can i do about this company sure they are ripping us off big style! anyone else pay management company if so how mush do u pay, and does that cover all repairs!

sorry connyflower I cant help with this but I'm wishing you lots of luck and hoping too that a mumsnetter will help you out.keep your chin up

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yeah asked solicitor and he suggested having a residents meeting which i have orginised for tonight but the people in the block are ...how can i put it nicely..... a bunch of idiots and i know there is going to be no compromise between them! main problem being is some of the residents have just paid this bill others dispute it! and got a feeling tonight is going to be a mare as they are a bunch of argumentitive buggers! dont feel this will get us anywhere feel i will be stick in this flat 4ever and i wanna start a family and cant being there, so p*ed off! x

googd luck at the residents meeting tonight i hope you can bang these peoples heads together!! hopefully some good mumsnetter can give some good advise to you, and where to go from here, there has to be someone who has been in this situation.
big hugs keep your chin up you you will get to move and start your family x

thank you lolliepops x

you need to find out whee management company are spending the 800 ponuds sound shifty to me?

Don't really know the English system, but in the Scottish system (where the "management company" are called "factors"), the factors usually produce annual accounts per address, that they look after, sent to each of the flats detailing what was spent where (and their percentage ). Have they produced anything like that for you?

I seem to remeber that one of area of potential "scam" (in both Enlgand and Scoltand) is that the factors/management company can get infralted quotes from "friend" to do work that is required.

That was one of the reasons why it was made easier to change management companies/ self-factro - but you need to get the resdients organsied enough to even consider it. Usually the threat is enough to get them to start being more professional and communicative!

we do get statements every 6months but looking back at them now, i think they are fiddling us there was a charge of £49 per flat for a out door tap per year!which we dont even have! sure they are fiddling taxes or something! the management company have threatened to drop out from us if we dont pay this bill which would leave us with no building insurance, sure thins meating will be fun , will go in with my body armer on there is sure to be a barney

I am sure that my brother, who organised self factoring for his last flat (he moved not long ago), and my parents, who live in a "shared occupany" building, have organised insurance for thier respective buildings that not only had vastly improved cover, but also cost a fraction of what they were being charged by the factor.

It also meant that they could save on "double" building insurance, as they knew exactly what the cover was - I know when we lived in a tenement flat, we ended up having basic factors' insurance for the whole building plus additional building insurance for our own flat. (We kept on meaning to look at self-factoring/changing the factor, but never got around to it - even though we knew we could get over 50% of the residents to agree, which was all we needed)

Why not suggest looking into it - by appealling to the other residents' pockets it might get their attention!

When I was in a block, we joined together and bought the freehold.
I think you can do this - force the freeholders to sell - if more than 50% of the leaseholders want to do it. You then have the option to manage the block yourselves - you create a management company, of which all the leaseholders are members - and agree on your own ground-rent (if any maintenance charges) length of lease, what maintenance to carry out etc etc), or you can employ a management co to do it for you - but to your specification, just as the freeholder does at present.

It wasn't a terribly complicated thing to do - it cost us £400 per flat, but that was 15 years ago, but it makes your property more valuable because you have a Share of freehold (no problems with short leases etc), you have more control and generally, the service charges ar MUCH lower!

Do you have an official residents' association? If not, your rights are not so clear-cut. You should perhaps take this opportunity to create a residents' association and then start to demand copies of accounts and supporting documentation. You have the right to be consulted on major works and it doesn't sound as though the management company is doing this. If you are unhappy with the management's accounts, you could apply to a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal.

Have a look here .

thanks just finishing work now off to my meeting , will let you know tom, thanks for that link will print it out! no we dont have a residents assosiation have tried to ask 4 documents of accounts but they want 50 quid for them , will approach the residents tonight and see what there opinion of this shambles is, thank you every one for your suggestions

this does sound shocking, you cant let this company get away with this let us know how your meeting goes x