Management company charges to fill in LPE1s. A wa6 around it? Or is this fee normal?

[GupB]

I’m selling a shared freehold flat, which used a management company to manage it.

My solicitor asked me for the following:
“The Management Company will need to provide Leasehold replies to enquiries (LPE1’s) and associating documentation. If you contact the Management Company they will be able to advise you of the same.”

I asked the management company if they could provide this, and they are going to charge £450 plus vat (up front) to do this, and take 10 days.

That’s half the fee of our solicitor! So I’m

But is this normal? Is there a way I can do this and not pay £450?!

I am completely clueless about the whole thing! The last place I sold was just straight up freehold and not shared freehold.

(Oh so many typos in my original post and title! Sorry!)

Is this “the management pack” unfortunately these do cost but that is on the higher side

I think that’s normal. I had to pay £400 for a management pack when selling my flat. It’s always more expensive to sell leasehold/shared freehold unfortunately.

Yes, unfortunately this happened to me when selling my late mum's property. The management company refused to answer individual questions and insisted on providing a leasehold information pack instead. They charged £330 (Inc VAT). It's such a pain isn't it.

Yes i had to pay £350 for mine plus i paid an extra £75 for 'express service' as needed it asap.
Except the twats sent it to the wrong email address on a Thursday afternoon supposed to be completing on the Friday wouldn't tell me which email address they sent it to and had to wait to get it until the Monday and didn't complete until the Wednesday.

They sent me a letter last week telling me my ground rent was overdue, i sent them an email saying when the property was sold and to contact the new owners. They replied saying the didn't know we had sold the property as no one had told them

I've just paid similar, and then another £150 on top to get asbestos and other certificates which weren't included in the original pack. Was also a little miffed!

Yes I had to pay this. They took ages to do it, delaying the sale so do instruct ASAP.

As share of freehold and we are all directors in the company I did think about filling the form myself and having another flat owner sign. However, I had slight concern in case I did get any info wrong and liabilities, so I didn’t.

It is the Buyer's Solicitor who wants the LPE1 or management pack. They will not accept documents/paperwork supplied by you, only the information supplied by the Management Company, so you will have to pay for the pack unfortunately.

There are plans afoot to regularise the cost of these packs - I believe the maximum charge will be in the region of £250 + VAT, but until this becomes law, management companies will charge whatever they can get away with.

The buyer usually pays it through their solicitor. £450 is on the high side though. Normally more like £300. Can take 15 working days though.

In terms of still being sent a bill for ground rent - that's because the buyers solicitor probably failed to send a license to assign to the agents. It's not the agents fault - they are legally obligated to continue to correspond with the original name until they get it. No one tells the managing agent when a sale completes.

Our buyers didn't pay, we had to cover the cost ourselves.

It's the seller' who needs to pay for it. The fees you've been quoted probably reflect how cheap your solicitor is rather than anything else!