Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Help wanted re Leasehold situation
Hi
Two years ago, the Freeholders - Pledeam Property Management for the three 1-2 be flats in this Victorian conversion, added 'Terrorism Insurance' to our annual buildings insurance - which comes to c. £650 each per year. This added £65 p.a. each to our bills.. It is laughable to have terroism insurance on a small cul-de-sac of Green Lanes. So last year I challenged it. I was told that all the properties they managed now had it - it was general policy and there could be no exceptions. I called the Leaseholders Advise line and the guy basically rubbished it saying I should take them to court.
Anyway, due to various things I put it on the backburner and did no more. Until now - they have sent me a 7 day demand or legal proceedings. Anybody out there know about leaseholder/freeholder law or can give me advice?
SB
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by james walsh on
-
SB* Do you mean 'Pledream' property management, also, do you mean 'terrorism' insurance ?
Try this outfit http://www.tpos.co.uk/
-
Permalink Reply by Sapphireblue on
-
James looked at your link - doesn't apply.
-
Permalink Reply by RuthE on
-
Hi SB
Have you tried lease-advice.org. Its a government funded organisation. I have a situation too. I've found them very helpful. You can obtain a form from them to apply to the lease hold tribunal service. It may be the only way to sort it out unfortunately.
-
-
thanks Ruth - that's useful - had used them before but forgot about them. I will explore the possibilities of applying to the Leasehold tribunal. Tried to ring Lease advice today but BT landline down - will try again later this week.
-
-
What crooks trying to STEAL your hard earned cash like that. I really hope you sort it out.
What you should do is make sure they HAVE to pay out should any terrorism take place then petrol bomb your own house and make A FAT CLAIM.
Sounds really stupid what I just said BUT how stupid is it for some fat cat to just randomly charge you £650 extra a year.
All the best.
-
Permalink Reply by philipjm on
-
This is not an uncommon practise. The freeholders are looking after their interest in the premises.
What might wind you up more is the fact that if the freeholder has the obligation to insure then they are not obliged to do so with the cheapest insurer. In fact, it is not unusual for a freeholder to profit through a broker from insuring the building. If you are an investor looking to acquire freeholds / ground rent investments then you may find some are advertised with "the BENEFIT of management and insurance".
+1 on the response to look at lease-advice.org
If you don't like the practices of your freeholder then you may (collectively) be able to purchase the freehold or exercise the right to manage and subsequently deal with such matters yourselves.
The above is not intended to be dismissive of your concerns by any means. In fact, if I were in the same position I might be asking the same question, but I don't think the freeholder is doing anything in this instance which could be successfully challenged with the LVT or lands tribunal.
There are a couple of "what if" terrorism scenarios I could give, but at the risk of ridicule I will refrain from doing so.....
-
-
You (as a group of leaseholders not individually) may be entitled under the Landlord and Tenact Act 1985 to arrange for your own insurance subject to serving a 21 day notice on the freeholder that you intend to do so, and subject to certain conditions; primarily, that both freeholders/leaseholders' interests are served to the same level of cover as previously. Much will depend on the specific terms of your lease which will lay out who is responsible for what. However, it is rarely economical to do so as Property Management companies are able to negotiate a much better price due to the volume of their business. You are entitled to be supplied with a copy of the current insurance schedule under the same legislation once a year on request if you do not already have one. You can use this to shop around for yourselves and see if you can get a better price (with or without the terrorism clause which is now common) but I doubt you will. And you must factor in all the problems with administering the payment of the premiums yourselves. What if one flat doesn't stump up their share of the premium on time? That leaves ALL your flats uninsured until they do.
-
Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
-
Sapphireblue: some time ago I had roughly similar problems with a managing agent, although without the novel terrorist element. Have you seen the insurance policy you are contributing to and read what you are actually covered for? Given the average common-sense approach to the chances of a terrorist attack involving your property, £65 p.a. extra looks unreasonably high. Are they adding management fees on top?
IMO, the first thing to do is read and re-read carefully your lease. There should be requirements for reasonableness, such as, reasonable management charges, reasonable increases etc. This could be grounds for a challenge if you think you are being treated unreasonably. If you fail in efforts to reason with them, you could threaten to deduct the terrorist charges and invite them to take you to the small claims court to recover them – and sort our the issue.
This would involve you in some preparation. You will have to steel yourself for aggravation, because although the agents will probably be loathe to take you to court, if you have a mortgage, they may be quite happy to attempt to cause trouble for you by notifiying your lender.
In the long run, you should consider, buying the freehold; one way to encourage this is to complain about the management service.
-
-
Sorry to bring this subject up again but does anyone know anything about what happens after a lease hold tribunal? I had a tribunal in the summer which supposedly settled mainly in my favour, however since the 'decision' nothing has happened. Am I supposed to nag them in to doing what they are supposed to do or take them to court again? ( I don't think I could face it again!)
-
-
Depends on what your Tribunal was about. If you want to contact me "off list" with a few details I could probably point you in the right direction. Generally speaking, not acting on a Tribunal decision is normally dealt with as "contempt of court". You would hope that a stiffly worded letter to that effect should be enough to not have to go back to court.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
