Annual maintenance fees - reasonable expectations?

[Celia24]

I live in my first owned flat and the building is shared with 5 other flats. We all pay amounts into a cyclical fund throughout the year for repairs etc. At the end of last year there was an additional job which cost an extra £236.

I've just had a bill through for half a grand to carry out repairs on the roof. It was a bit of a shock tbh and has messed up my plans to sort internal repairs in the next month now.

With cost of living etc I'm a bit worried about what else will come up, feel at the mercy of the company. Is it worth querying or is this a reasonable amount to pay for this?

If six flats are paying £500 each, that's £3k which isn't a very big roof job. It's impossible to say whether its reasonable without knowing what the repairs involve.

Buildings need maintenance, you need to talk to the company responsible to find out what their strategy is, and how they manage the maintenance fund.

You would be better off paying a monthly service charge fee to be held for ongoing maintenance and that also pays in to a reserve fund for this sort of work. Who owns the freehold? If its an external freeholder speak to the other leaseholders and ask about either self managing or asking the freeholder to start a monthly fee. It will help you budget more.

Budget about 1% property value a year unless it’s a very cheap property in which case allow more.

Most years will be less, but the high ones can be very painful if you are not prepared.

@Asdf12345 just calculated this and I currently pay 1% of maintenance already each year.

I read the letter @OhhhhhhhhBiscuits and they say that the work that needs done falls outside of building insurance so they need X amount from each tenant. I pay monthly maintenance and usually repairs come out of that fund.

I wasn't actually aware there would be bigger fees over and above that when I moved in.

Was the maintenance approved? Or were you all just given a bill?

The @Theunamedcat it isn't approved yet. I have to say I agree or disagree to the work being carried out via a vote and send the form by return.

Only myself and another woman are newish tenants - everyone else has been here for years and always used this housing association.

I think its common that the monthly payments you pay towards maintenance aren't really enough to cover all the larger repairs. You should get annual statements from the management company which would allow you to monitor this. You could request the statement from last year or just ask one of the tenants for it. At least it does sound like the maintenance is being done regularly.