Lambeth Leaseholders: WHOPPING bill for Major Works? Post Reply

[boonkoh]

I just received my usual estimated annual service charge statement for 2015/2016 from Lambeth, my leaseholder. Within, it contained a huge estimated £9000+ for their Major Works programme they are undertaking within the next year on all the property that they own the freehold of.

If you haven't read through your estimated service charge document yet, you should!

Anyone else get a huge bill? Looking to see what my options are to challenge, as I would be really interested to see how they have come up with the quote, as there is not much major works required to my property that I can see....

[Broken Dad]

OK I think that Lambeth are your freeholder and not your leaseholder. In most leases the landlord (here the freeholder i.e. Lambeth) will charge service charges. Sometimes shock horror these are onerous and an attempt to extort £££££ from you the tenant. You have legislation to hand enabling you to challenge this however:

1. I know precious little about this;
2. It may not apply to local authorities (@LAs@)(doubtful but worth checking); and
3. LAs are the most inefficient of all God's creations so you need to major on why changing a door know costs 5 grand say. Thew answer is in order to pay their massive early retirement pension pots but can this be deducted from he costs and should they charge an ordinary commercial amount???? No idea this is probably common law and in all likelihood has been tested.

Whilst i practice law this IS so far out of may area that YOU MUST NOT ACT ON THIS COMMENT BUT SEEK ADVICE FROM A SOLICITOR OR A CAB. THIS IS MERELY CONJECTURE. This is me arse covering because us lawyers are increasingly being sued by giving free advice to friends and randoms.

[boonkoh]

Thanks for the reply - you're right - my bad, it was a typo. I meant to say Lambeth Living are my Freeholders. I am a leaseholder in a property.

What irks me is that the more I dug over the last week, I have found that their contractor has come up with this major works list, despite not having gotten access to my property, apart from surveying from the outside of the front. And there has been loads of inaccuracies - like being charged to upgrade to uPVC double glazing windows, despite the fact that I already have double glazing throughout the entire flat!

Has any other leaseholders in the Lambeth area gotten this notice from lambeth Living too?

[kat*]

We had a £6 bill for windows being replaced 8 years ago. We had the original rotten timber windows in the property at the time. We wanted to replace the years before lambeth did, but didn't as the lease stated it was in their ownership. If we had replaced the with double glazing before they did, the council would have still replaced the windows and charged us for them.

Best to look at your lease. They can charge you for major works and unfortunately this can mean big bills. You can challenge the costs.

[Broken Dad]

Go to a CAB and lodge a full challenge to this. It is merely a contractor trying it on with lambeth apparently assisting them.

[sarahjlevans]

Hi Boonkoh

I have just sent you a private message, as I fellow leaseholder I feel your pain. Dealing with Lambeth Living is a nightmare!

Please do PM me back if you have any further questions.

Sarah

[kat*]

Oops. I meant to say £6k... Not £6 for our windows.

Regardless, I agree that dealing with Lambeth Living is a nightmare. One of the windows they installed in our lounge was with frosted glass and they damaged the plasterwork around the window... I refused to pay for the full amount until the fixed it, but they threatened to fine me if I didn't pay. I had no choice but to pay. Needless to say they never fixed it.

We had a clogged down pipe that took the 7 months to repair despite phoning and emailing regularly.

The carpark drain is currently clogged. It will be interesting to see how long it will take them to fix that.

[rzlaprime]

Hi,

we are going through this whole thing right now (not with Lambeth council, with a private freeholder, but I'm sure the process is the same). They estimated 15k for a house split into two flats, when independent contractors said there was about £4k of work required. The whole process is designed to make money for the freeholder through backhanders and commissions, not to maintain your property

I doubt they'll back down because you reason with them, so essentially there are two things you can do.

1) you have the right to nominate your own contractors to quote for the works. this is worth a shot but in our case we found this unsuccessful as on the whole normal builders (exlcuding the rip off builders the freeholder chooses) can't be bothered with all the paperwork. Also in our case the schedule of work was so long winded that if the contractors quoted for everything on it then it would come in at about the same price.

2) contest the schedule of works itself. You will need to employ your own surveyor (I can recommend one) to conduct their own survey. As the freeholders surveyor usually gives the property a cursory glance you can gain an advantage by getting your surveyor to take pictures of the back of the house/roof etc... the cost for us was 900 for this, though I did get an informal estimate from him before employing him to make sure his quote was going to be much less,which he said it will be. If the 900 seems too much you can get a builder to make an estimate as to WHAT WORKS ARE REQUIRED but this evidence will clearly carry less weight.

After getting this evidence from 1) or 2) the freeholder may still refuse to back down in which case you have 2 more routes to go down -
1) Mediation - you have the right to request they meet you with a mediator to discuss the situation - obviously you go armed with any evidence you've got.
2) go to a tribunal - you can represent yourself or pay a solicitor (probably not work paying a solicitor when arguing for a bill of £9k).

We haven't finished the process yet so can't confirm the result, we are just waiting for the surveyor to provide the alternative schedule of works right now...

pm me if you want to discuss - I'm happy to speak about it as I'm so outraged by this whole practise.

Tom

[rzlaprime]

ps check this website out: http://www.lease-advice.org/

[atbattersea]

You can challenge the cost of the works. I have heard of cases where a local authority has decided to put a new roof on a block, but when it went to court it couldn't actually justify the work (ie that the roof was faulty and needed replacing) so the leaseholders did not need to pay for those works.

You need to get together with your fellow leaseholders and challenge the council. You also need to get legal advice as to how to do this properly.

[smrice]

I have had the same from Lambeth. Challenge it - but it is easier to get as many of you together as possible

They will have made so many errors they wont be able to charge you the full amount. And then there is the statute rules on times that they can bill you, and for what time period.

Its complicated, but worth a challenge - you can access free legal advice at the Lambeth Law Centre in Brixton, or the Waterloo Action Centre

Ill let you know how we get on too!

[pal_b]

HI, I know this is an old thread but I have recently received a huge bill from Lambeth in relation to major works carried out on out on the roof of our flat and I was wondering if you had any success challenging Lambeth and whether you had any recommendations for a solicitor?
many thanks

[ricbake]

Leaseholders: Register with Leaseholder Council Exec

Dear Fellow Leaseholders and Freeholders

This is important for you in a number of ways, including financially and our ability to communicate.

We are your representative body for all Leasehold (Homeowner) issues including Major Works, Service Charges, Insurance etc elected from Area Forums. You will be aware of the importance of these items involving thousands of pounds of your money. There are a number of current and future major issues affecting you.

Lambeth have agreed to circulate this letter to you: we are asking you to provide us with your email address so we can communicate with you directly.

We urge you, therefore, to:

• email us, the Leasehold (Homeowners) Council Executive, from the address you would like to register with us;
• give us your authority to store your email address and communicate with you;
• with your email your full name and your address

We will not share your information with anyone outside Leasehold Council Executive or the Area Council Executive (if one is formed) and it will be used only for the purpose of communicating with you about Housing or related issues.

Our email address to register with us is: lambethhomeownerschair@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you.

Shemi Leira
Chair

[actuallyadad]

frankly I think if you're lucky enough to have a cheap flat from the council in London these days you should stop moaning and pay up your fair share

[chorister]

First of all, I am on the Board of a private sector block of flats that has recently had a large amount spent on refurbishing it. In my experience all the stuff about backhanders, commissions and so on is garbage and should be ignored. Because people are so loath to pay up, essential repairs etc get postponed and sinking funds aren't set up, so when they become unavoidable there is a big bill.

There is legislation which I am almost (but not completely - you will have to check) sure applies to local authority landlords too which controls this process. It is called in shorthand the Section 20 process, and requires details to be circulated and objections from leaseholders to be invited for any contract over £250 (I think - again, check the detail) per property. The landlord also has to circulate the tender returns etc.

There are details of all of this here http://www.leaseholdadvicecentre.co.uk/Section%2020.htm and here https://www.gov.uk/housing-tribunals.