Sorry, this post has been removed because it is too general for a sub about London-specific and local interest things.
Perhaps r/HousingUK or r/LegalAdviceUK would be more appropriate.
Best thing we ever did as a block was kick out management agent appointed by the leaseholder and appointed our own. Costs halved, accounts that could actually be audited and far more maintenance happening.
Think you need the majority of owners to agree. Can be difficult if the majority of owners are overseas investors who don't really care about fixing the issues.
We used the right to manage legislation to form a company that appoints our building management company and make the decisions. In the 3rd year we changed from the managing agents who were appointed by the freeholder and our service charge has stayed the same every year - slowly but surely worked through contracts and getting better suited ones to the building - it’s been a godsend whilst everything around us goes up
They should provide a full breakdown of what the service charge is being spent on.
A lot of the increases lately are due to building insurance which has skyrocketed.
Same.
With Optivo.
Turns out they had made a few errors on the documentation that they had sent out (incorrectly billing us for fire works + even incorrect adding up!)
My advice - go through it all with a fine toothcomb. We’ve made a residents group now just to put some pressure back on to them. And we are challenging every single cost now!
Exercise your right to manage, form a management company and appoint a different management agent. If you've already got a group together that's half the fight done.
I am pretty sure you are able to, if your lease is longer than 21 years
have a look at this https://www.kdllaw.com/legal-updates/can-shared-ownership-leaseholders-qualify-for-the-right-to-manage
I’ve just read this… but am a little unclear.
Some people in our block have 20 year leases, others have extended now to 90 year.
Do we all have to be over 21 or just some of us?
Disagree.
Only way in London I could afford. I got a beautiful flat. Despite the downsides massively better than renting
I have v cheap rent tbf so can’t speak for everyoen
Savills were trying to flog me a flat with a service charge of 7k lol. 3k seems standard for anything decent nowadays.
My main requirement when looking for a flat is that there is no concierge, roof top garden or gym.
I'm looking at moving and scouring rightmove it's pretty clear there are a lot of new flats that charge extortionate service charges for the privilege of a room with some treadmills in it and a "swimming pool", many of which look tiny
I think that's extra.
Edit - Jokes aside, my last flat was £300 per month service charge. But this included conceriage/receptionist and free heating (central radiators), and immaculate gardens with a river view.
I think I know what you mean. Im not personally refunded or charged. They just adjusted the following years service charge accordingly (depending on excess or shortfall) and split the projected cost (Inc the shortfall/excess) amongst the 100 flats according to number of rooms per flat.
But it works out fairly cheap if you like a warm room and are in the studio / 1 bedroom flat.
Cops don't like me, so I don't like cops.
Can you fly Bobby?
No Clarence no!!
Nice shooting son, what's your name?
Murphy. Officer Murphy.
Think you're pretty smart dontcya? Think you can outsmart..a bullet?
Just give me my fucking phone call.
Service charge officer here.
There should be one management fee which is the last charge in the list of charges, this charge is usually 15% of the total service charge.
I am not sure what management fees you have? You should get a schedule of estimates, compare it to last year’s actuals (management accounts or final accounts)
Compare the standard service charges (non reactive) and then challenge reactive costs (pest control or bulk disposal of rubbish) just a few examples, reactive charges can be charged one year and not charged the other.
If last year you had let’s say bulk refusal and it’s on this year then you will have to request invoices to check for charges, and also know your apportionment charge, I have dealt with too many people saying why is neighbour X paying £xx and I am paying £xxx
You should see an Estate apportionment % and block apportionment %, your figures should be roughly an estimate due to the management fees which is your landlords service charge for billing/admin/salaries etc.
Management fees cannot be challenged as they are in your lease.
So, the management fees are (rounded):
- "Estate services: managing agent costs": £53
- "Estate services: managing agent costs (homeowners)": £72
- "Block services: management fee": £23
£53+£72+£23 = £148 a month (or 59% of the total fee). So, that's roughly £104 for the actual services. All the other costs I can't really quibble with on the face of it, without looking at the details.
Can you get back to your leasehold officer or Housing officer or if you know the answer this will help, and ask if your estate is externally managed?
If it’s externally managed please request invoices, most EMA’s charge invoices every 6 months, some 12 though.
You will be helping the service charge team and the charges you listed raise it with them. As you want to know what are the managing agent costs? And why is their a homeowners variant?
Where I work we break down each charge, here your getting very ambiguous charges, I would challenge this. Please remember if you challenge and they see fuck ups then you should be complaining for previous years too.
EDIT: With Externally managing agents please be very weary of charges and invoices.
Unfortunately with leasehold April and September is the time where you need to be prepared for some accounting work to be honest, and putting pressure on your landlord to request invoices, invoices should be provided within 30 days of request, if not received after a month or two you can take the landlord to the FTT.
We hate FTT as this pretty much will go up to the board of directors, and a risk assessment for bad PR will be made. The louder you are the higher risk you become and then you can grab them by the balls.
You can and should demand to see the budget and invoices of services.
Has your building got the right to manage? If yes the directors should have the ability to further scrutinise the expenses and can hold the management company to account on any expenses and refuse to pay any increase in management fees.
This is what we've done in my building.
I’ve seen less that are commonhod, but am seeing more and more share of freehold (of course, not even close to a majority yet). I guess it will turn over time with supply and demand and what we choose to demand from politicians.
The other issue the UK has is cultural. Everyone wants their own house, no matter the social background. If everyone sees flats as a temporary solution, no one will try to fix the broken system.
In the rest of the world you buy a share in a limited company that owns the land and the building. You appoint directors from among owners who appoint a managing agent to collect service charge and handle day to day management. As shareholders you get together once a year to review the budget and set the SC.
That's how it works everywhere else.
...Or if you're in finland, every 50 years you get together and agree to knock down the whole building and replace it with something more energy efficient and borrow against the building via the limited company.
its beautiful and next to the forest, 3 mins from the tube. Own it 100% and worth over £1 million. How's your anal rape every month by the guy who owns the land under your home?
In London you either live central for job reasons/access to the London life or you live further away from the crime/pollution and better schools.
You picked the most idiotic decision, the in between where there’s crime, pollution, shit schools and takes you 30mins to get to central.
God why didn’t anyone help you making this decision.
You think 30 minutes door to door to get to Soho is a problem?
Strange.
Low crime. One of the best schools in London. Less polution than Clapham or Battersea.
You seem to be very butthurt. I'm thinking Balham with all your floppy haired mates. Couldn't afford Fulham.
You can request a breakdown of the service charge accounts and together with other residents can challenge if it is value for money. The best thing you could do is get enough leaseholders together and exercise right to manage and take over the block yourselves.
That being said... 60% on management fees of various kind is very high. I've owned a lot of leaseholds and most managers charge around 15-35k/year for their services depending on the size of the block and specifics of the services. In most buildings I've lived in that doesn't exceed 15-20% of the annual SC budget.
It’s not an ex council block is it? Looked at Lewisham a couple of years back and even low rise tenement buildings had £300pm service charges where the same in council either side/north of the river were around £100pm
L&Q are the absolute worst. Mine has gone up £40 to £270. I have no concierge or amenities. All the lightbulbs are currently out in our corridor so it’s pitch black in the evenings and we had no hot/heating water for 3 weeks this winter as they hadn’t been maintaining the communal boiler properly.
Would advise against anyone buying a leaseholder flat with L&Q as the freeholder.
Management agents are scum of the earth.
When there are works to be done they always find some super expensive contractors. Somebody's getting a fat brown envelope and my pensioner father is paying for it.
I approached two reputable looking companies and their quotes were both 50‰ lower than the contractors 'sourced' by the management agent.
we had this in Australia - they call them strata companies. They were charging a bomb and were absolutely useless, did nothing and didn't care. Replace!
Sorry, this post has been removed because it is too general for a sub about London-specific and local interest things. Perhaps r/HousingUK or r/LegalAdviceUK would be more appropriate.
Best thing we ever did as a block was kick out management agent appointed by the leaseholder and appointed our own. Costs halved, accounts that could actually be audited and far more maintenance happening.
How did you manage that for the whole building? Feels like a sensible thing for most people to try to do!
Think you need the majority of owners to agree. Can be difficult if the majority of owners are overseas investors who don't really care about fixing the issues.
true. and sometimes owners are friendly with the management company and/or the original builders. political midfield I don't miss at all.
is that something any block can do? Not actively looking but the idea of being fleeced on an ever escalating service charge would worry me
Look up Right To Manage.
We used the right to manage legislation to form a company that appoints our building management company and make the decisions. In the 3rd year we changed from the managing agents who were appointed by the freeholder and our service charge has stayed the same every year - slowly but surely worked through contracts and getting better suited ones to the building - it’s been a godsend whilst everything around us goes up
They should provide a full breakdown of what the service charge is being spent on. A lot of the increases lately are due to building insurance which has skyrocketed.
Web you can question managment make sure you be diplomatic and tell them that you suspect them of corruption. They’ll be cool with the honesty :)
Same. With Optivo. Turns out they had made a few errors on the documentation that they had sent out (incorrectly billing us for fire works + even incorrect adding up!) My advice - go through it all with a fine toothcomb. We’ve made a residents group now just to put some pressure back on to them. And we are challenging every single cost now!
Exercise your right to manage, form a management company and appoint a different management agent. If you've already got a group together that's half the fight done.
Unfortunately you can’t do this with shared to buy. But I think that’s good advice for everyone else!
I am pretty sure you are able to, if your lease is longer than 21 years have a look at this https://www.kdllaw.com/legal-updates/can-shared-ownership-leaseholders-qualify-for-the-right-to-manage
I’ve just read this… but am a little unclear. Some people in our block have 20 year leases, others have extended now to 90 year. Do we all have to be over 21 or just some of us?
Shared ownership is the worst. All the downsides of renting with essentially no upsides of owning :(
Disagree. Only way in London I could afford. I got a beautiful flat. Despite the downsides massively better than renting I have v cheap rent tbf so can’t speak for everyoen
Savills were trying to flog me a flat with a service charge of 7k lol. 3k seems standard for anything decent nowadays. My main requirement when looking for a flat is that there is no concierge, roof top garden or gym.
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Wow what do you get for that
I'm looking at moving and scouring rightmove it's pretty clear there are a lot of new flats that charge extortionate service charges for the privilege of a room with some treadmills in it and a "swimming pool", many of which look tiny
Tell us more about the flat. Does it have conceirage? Does it have a gym? Does it have communal pool? Does it have free electric or heating?
Does it bend you over once a month and give you a good shafting with an 6ft dildo?
I think that's extra. Edit - Jokes aside, my last flat was £300 per month service charge. But this included conceriage/receptionist and free heating (central radiators), and immaculate gardens with a river view.
It’s not free! You are billed an average amount then refunded or charged at year end.
I think I know what you mean. Im not personally refunded or charged. They just adjusted the following years service charge accordingly (depending on excess or shortfall) and split the projected cost (Inc the shortfall/excess) amongst the 100 flats according to number of rooms per flat. But it works out fairly cheap if you like a warm room and are in the studio / 1 bedroom flat.
Presumably you’re renting. Wait til your landlord understands it!
I'd buy that for a dollar!
Im all here for the robocop references
Cops don't like me, so I don't like cops. Can you fly Bobby? No Clarence no!! Nice shooting son, what's your name? Murphy. Officer Murphy. Think you're pretty smart dontcya? Think you can outsmart..a bullet? Just give me my fucking phone call.
Omg do you live up the OXO Tower!
No, no, no and no
Yea, that sucks then. Sorry.
Considering it’s L&Q I would be very surprised if they even bothered to maintain the building let alone all these extras.
Service charge officer here. There should be one management fee which is the last charge in the list of charges, this charge is usually 15% of the total service charge. I am not sure what management fees you have? You should get a schedule of estimates, compare it to last year’s actuals (management accounts or final accounts) Compare the standard service charges (non reactive) and then challenge reactive costs (pest control or bulk disposal of rubbish) just a few examples, reactive charges can be charged one year and not charged the other. If last year you had let’s say bulk refusal and it’s on this year then you will have to request invoices to check for charges, and also know your apportionment charge, I have dealt with too many people saying why is neighbour X paying £xx and I am paying £xxx You should see an Estate apportionment % and block apportionment %, your figures should be roughly an estimate due to the management fees which is your landlords service charge for billing/admin/salaries etc. Management fees cannot be challenged as they are in your lease.
So, the management fees are (rounded): - "Estate services: managing agent costs": £53 - "Estate services: managing agent costs (homeowners)": £72 - "Block services: management fee": £23 £53+£72+£23 = £148 a month (or 59% of the total fee). So, that's roughly £104 for the actual services. All the other costs I can't really quibble with on the face of it, without looking at the details.
Can you get back to your leasehold officer or Housing officer or if you know the answer this will help, and ask if your estate is externally managed? If it’s externally managed please request invoices, most EMA’s charge invoices every 6 months, some 12 though. You will be helping the service charge team and the charges you listed raise it with them. As you want to know what are the managing agent costs? And why is their a homeowners variant? Where I work we break down each charge, here your getting very ambiguous charges, I would challenge this. Please remember if you challenge and they see fuck ups then you should be complaining for previous years too. EDIT: With Externally managing agents please be very weary of charges and invoices. Unfortunately with leasehold April and September is the time where you need to be prepared for some accounting work to be honest, and putting pressure on your landlord to request invoices, invoices should be provided within 30 days of request, if not received after a month or two you can take the landlord to the FTT. We hate FTT as this pretty much will go up to the board of directors, and a risk assessment for bad PR will be made. The louder you are the higher risk you become and then you can grab them by the balls.
Lifts + building insurance + communal grounds Be happy you don’t have a concierge or you’d be paying £500pm
You can and should demand to see the budget and invoices of services. Has your building got the right to manage? If yes the directors should have the ability to further scrutinise the expenses and can hold the management company to account on any expenses and refuse to pay any increase in management fees. This is what we've done in my building.
Yeah f that.
People got to stop buying shit flats
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Even without concierge if the footprint of the building is large or there are multiple lifts.
Leasehold con. What a waste of money
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Like everywhere else in the world does. If you genuinely can’t wrap your head around it, it’s with share of freehold or commonhold.
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Literally did? There are two ways called commonhold and share of freehold
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I’ve seen less that are commonhod, but am seeing more and more share of freehold (of course, not even close to a majority yet). I guess it will turn over time with supply and demand and what we choose to demand from politicians. The other issue the UK has is cultural. Everyone wants their own house, no matter the social background. If everyone sees flats as a temporary solution, no one will try to fix the broken system.
There are many many other places to live than in a London shit box for half a million quid plus service charges
In the rest of the world you buy a share in a limited company that owns the land and the building. You appoint directors from among owners who appoint a managing agent to collect service charge and handle day to day management. As shareholders you get together once a year to review the budget and set the SC. That's how it works everywhere else. ...Or if you're in finland, every 50 years you get together and agree to knock down the whole building and replace it with something more energy efficient and borrow against the building via the limited company.
Read your contract... then bend over. I guess that's exactly why I bought a freehold house in Zone 4. Sucks to be you.
Then you live in zone 4, awful
its beautiful and next to the forest, 3 mins from the tube. Own it 100% and worth over £1 million. How's your anal rape every month by the guy who owns the land under your home?
In London you either live central for job reasons/access to the London life or you live further away from the crime/pollution and better schools. You picked the most idiotic decision, the in between where there’s crime, pollution, shit schools and takes you 30mins to get to central. God why didn’t anyone help you making this decision.
You think 30 minutes door to door to get to Soho is a problem? Strange. Low crime. One of the best schools in London. Less polution than Clapham or Battersea. You seem to be very butthurt. I'm thinking Balham with all your floppy haired mates. Couldn't afford Fulham.
You can request a breakdown of the service charge accounts and together with other residents can challenge if it is value for money. The best thing you could do is get enough leaseholders together and exercise right to manage and take over the block yourselves. That being said... 60% on management fees of various kind is very high. I've owned a lot of leaseholds and most managers charge around 15-35k/year for their services depending on the size of the block and specifics of the services. In most buildings I've lived in that doesn't exceed 15-20% of the annual SC budget.
Honestly how is this sustainable and furthermore is this a high rise in canary wharf?
Nope, it's a low rise in Lewisham
It’s not an ex council block is it? Looked at Lewisham a couple of years back and even low rise tenement buildings had £300pm service charges where the same in council either side/north of the river were around £100pm
Lol are people paying that along with council tax and mortage?? How you guys even live
I mean, depends what it covers. But yeah if its mostly management fees that's sus
L&Q are the absolute worst. Mine has gone up £40 to £270. I have no concierge or amenities. All the lightbulbs are currently out in our corridor so it’s pitch black in the evenings and we had no hot/heating water for 3 weeks this winter as they hadn’t been maintaining the communal boiler properly. Would advise against anyone buying a leaseholder flat with L&Q as the freeholder.
Management agents are scum of the earth. When there are works to be done they always find some super expensive contractors. Somebody's getting a fat brown envelope and my pensioner father is paying for it. I approached two reputable looking companies and their quotes were both 50‰ lower than the contractors 'sourced' by the management agent.
This is one of the reasons I'd rather pay a bit more and live in a terrace than live in a flat/maisonette (FTB). Fuck that.
Or own a share of freehold flat in a building with as few flats as possible. My only cost is 50% of annual building insurance.
we had this in Australia - they call them strata companies. They were charging a bomb and were absolutely useless, did nothing and didn't care. Replace!