RobBBB

Does anyone else live in a flat and pay management fees?
I suspect most people in flats/apartments do pay a monthly fee but over the last couple of years the management company for my flat has started coming to all the residents 'informing' us that it needs adhoc sums of money from us to make up deficits for upkeep/decoration etc.

We already pay a standard monthly charge, which is fair enough, but the last couple of years they just send a letter telling us that they will take 2-300 from us as and when they see fit - in addition to the normal monthly charge.

Is there anything I can do about this? Does anyone else living in flats/apartments have to pay similar ad hoc charges? Considering refusing to pay, although that's a last resort..

Jamescsti

Do you own the flat or rent it?
Do you have a contract with the company?

bluenosewrx

iTrader: (2)

We pay a monthly factor for the upkeep of the lighting, grass cutting etc, and we also get stung for the surrounding area as well, fuc*ing rip off if the truth be told, they must be on a fortune.

Mac

AudiLover

cant be that much of a fortune seein as you either live in n'yorks or edinburgh.

Try london for size and you will be happy compared

either that or buy

vindaloo

Is there a residents committee? If not, form one and ask for anaccount of how the money is being spent. Bit of a PITA if there's nothing there at the moment but probably preferable to ad-hoc £hundreds being demanded by the management company.

J.

RobBBB

I own the flat and yes have a contract with them. Guess that contract is my first port of call. I think I was slightly naive in thinking that the manamement fee would provide for all the upkeep issues on its own.

Bluenose - do you ever have to pay fees over and above your monthly payment?

mart360

we bought had flat that had no maintenance charges attached...

the only proviso was this if work needed doing, it would be split throughout the whole estate. 140 odd houses and flats... the most people had paid was about £40 a few years prior to us mooving in for some hedge cutting..

suffice to say it was one of the selling points of the flats.. some people i work with pay over a grand in maintenance charges


Mart

///\oo/\\\

If all the residents of the block get together, you may able to bin the management company and set up your own, or appoint another.

stilover

Yeah, I live in flats with management fee's.

We pay a fixed monthly rate, and of that a reserve fund is included (unforeseen expenses like repairs) so the rate never changes through the year. It kept going up each year, really annoyed me. I found out that the management company was just giving in to every ones suggestions of what should be bought/updated/repaired etc. They were also just paying what the 3rd party contractors (window cleaner/gardener etc) were quoting.

The solution was to become a Director of Clarendon House (our Block of flats). That gave me access to all the accounts etc. Now everything has to be agreed by me (and another lad who signed up too) before anything gets spent. The projected rates for the coming year has to be agreed by me too, meaning I started cutting costs by getting new quotes for maintenance work, and scrapping needles work that didn't need doing (resurface of car park / new benches etc). All were fine and didn't need doing.

The monthly rates have remained about the same for the past 2 years now. Without my intervention I'm sure I'd be paying alot more. Our reserve fund is set at £3000 pa divided by the number of flats.

My advise is to become a Director of your flats and get yourself to the AGM meetings. This will give you power to curb some of the costs. Reserve funds are a good way of keeping monthly payment the same all year round.

bluenosewrx

iTrader: (2)

You are a total bell-end and getteing on my Nerves. i am in HMF and live down south during the week and my flat at week ends if i am not working, paying two sets of charges is not fun.

Mac

marky1

It's normal when work needs to be done in the forseeable future. They may be trying to build up a sinking fund. It's worth paying to keep the place looking good and essentially looking after your "investment"

bluenosewrx

iTrader: (2)

No not yet as its a new build, all the money we pay goes into a big float and if something needs done it will come off that,also have to pay another company for the surrounding area grass cutting etc,the total ends up at about £40-50 a month,

Knew that before we moved in so should not really moan that much.

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

How do you go about doing that with no resident's comittee? Our factor agent bill comes in at £50 a quarter before we start but that includes building insurance as we all need to contribute to that.

On top we have grass cutting and cleaning, stairwell electricity and the bills for repairs etc are split between everyone so comes in about £100 a quarter so £400 a year. The costs have risen steadily though and it has taken 3 years for them to sack the useless cleaners!

Forming a residents comittee is a bit of a no as the usual problem of apathy is the issue. No way we could get everyone together to actually give us the power to sort it out.

This director business need input from a residents association or not?

5t.

scoobyster

Will consider that for mine (although it'd be a bit of a PITA as I'm not actually living in my flat much - now working abroad). We pay something like 500GBP PA which is fixed but they always send a bill for the extra they have 'spent' during the year, last year about 80GBP.

I've started monitoring the communal electricity meter to try to catch them out multiplying the bills to suit themselves. We're paying 800GBP to insure the building structure (not contents) of a boggo block of 4x 2 bed flats in Sheffield - seems a bit over the top too.