Admin charges for an unpaid invoice I didn't receive...?

Malevolence said:
Having never lived in a new build *spit* or on an estate, are these sort of schemes mandatory or can you opt not to sign up to them when you buy your property? Smacks of legalised 'extortion' to me.
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Used to be worse, for a while fairly recently, new build houses were being sold on leases, with clauses for ground rent and service charge increases.

Firstly there is (normally) no reason why a lease needs to be created on a house, the whole thing was a scam but people going into thses things with no idea.

This has been stopped now, but I believe they can still put an "estate change" into the freehold title, which is totally ******** as well.

New build devepers are ******* greasy, they make a fortune building shoddy houses with little to no regulation, the government do **** because it feeds their capitalism.

Not only now but this trend of "estate charges" so they can extort even more.

You'd have to have your head examined to get into anything like this.

I'm not sure if these estate management companies fall under any regulatory body?? I doubt it because they will more than likely be setup as independent limited companies, with links to the initial developer.

Greasy.......
 
BUDFORCE said:
Used to be worse, for a while fairly recently, new build houses were being sold on leases, with clauses for ground rent and service charge increases.

Firstly there is (normally) no reason why a lease needs to be created on a house, the whole thing was a scam but people going into thses things with no idea.

This has been stopped now, but I believe they can still put an "estate change" into the freehold title, which is totally ******** as well.

New build devepers are ******* greasy, they make a fortune building shoddy houses with little to no regulation, the government do **** because it feeds their capitalism.

Not only now but this trend of "estate charges" so they can extort even more.

You'd have to have your head examined to get into anything like this.

I'm not sure if these estate management companies fall under any regulatory body?? I doubt it because they will more than likely be setup as independent limited companies, with links to the initial developer.

Greasy.......
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There's a couple of things here, I don't totally disagree with you but it is also a problem with councils. Councils are refusing to adopt new roads and green spaces because they're strapped for cash, and no builder is going to incur long term costs of maintaining roads and green spaces, so it's up to the owners. Ultimately there aren't anywhere near enough houses to meet demand, so people just have to put up with it. In our case we either had a choice of renting or buying a new build so accepted that estate charges are the lesser of two evils.

For our estate we can request access to the accounts and I believe also vote to remove and replace a management company too, but there always needs to be one. Only one road on the estate is owned by the council, all the others are owned by the estate. It means our council tax, which is the same rate as everyone elses, is covering a hell of a lot less...
 
|Thomas| said:
There's a couple of things here, I don't totally disagree with you but it is also a problem with councils. Councils are refusing to adopt new roads and green spaces because they're strapped for cash, and no builder is going to incur long term costs of maintaining roads and green spaces, so it's up to the owners.
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I find this arrangement awfully convenient though....

I guess in your circumstance however, the way the management company is run seems transparent, so fair enough.
 
Malevolence said:
Having never lived in a new build *spit* or on an estate, are these sort of schemes mandatory or can you opt not to sign up to them when you buy your property? Smacks of legalised 'extortion' to me.
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legalised extortion for sure, they also dictate all sorts of rules you have to abide by which only ever get thrown around when somebody gets upset, they get very touchy when you point out all the other aspects of the covenant that other residents are breaking.
 
Their reply:

Good Morning,

I can confirm that we received your payment yesterday for £270.00.

In regards to you being in touch with the office this wouldn’t be something that would be raised by another member of staff. We have different staff who deal with different matters so should there be a problem with the arrears another member of staff wouldn’t advise you of this information.

I have attached a copy of the management agreement for your reference. This is the management agreement between Redwood Point and Homestead CSL which is signed by the directors of the company. Page 17 of the management agreement has the admin fees which would be charged should the collection procedure be carried out. The admin fee applied to your account for late payment of service charge was £60.00 however I am offering to reduce the admin to reduce the outstanding costs for you. This would mean the outstanding balance for you to pay is £30.00 rather than £60.00. I am reducing the balance as you claim you did not receive the invoice or initial arrears letter however these have been sent to the correct address and our admin work has been carried out. The admin fee will remain on the account to be paid, this will not be chased on its own.

I have attached a copy of the admin charges – summary of rights. This document is sent out with every arrears letter in which an admin fee have been incurred. A copy of this document would have been sent with your arrears letter.
 
"The admin fee will remain on the account to be paid, this will not be chased on its own."

Basically just ignore it then, it will show up forever but they won't chase you.
Keep a copy of that mail.
 
|Thomas| said:
There's a couple of things here, I don't totally disagree with you but it is also a problem with councils. Councils are refusing to adopt new roads and green spaces because they're strapped for cash, and no builder is going to incur long term costs of maintaining roads and green spaces, so it's up to the owners. Ultimately there aren't anywhere near enough houses to meet demand, so people just have to put up with it. In our case we either had a choice of renting or buying a new build so accepted that estate charges are the lesser of two evils.

For our estate we can request access to the accounts and I believe also vote to remove and replace a management company too, but there always needs to be one. Only one road on the estate is owned by the council, all the others are owned by the estate. It means our council tax, which is the same rate as everyone elses, is covering a hell of a lot less...
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Exactly this sadly. I've got a sub £100 annual service charge that covers cutting the grass across the estate (communal areas rather than peoples gardens) and maintainence of the play area.

Perhaps a little bit NIMBY but I always question why the council will not adopt the play area here yet it must remain open to non residents who often drive up to use it. Either it should be private and maintained by homeowners on the estate or its public and the council should pay for the upkeep from the additional council tax income from the ~140 houses that were built. Anyway gone completely off-piste here :D

Good on you OP for not giving in and standing by the (correct) moral ground that you did not receive the invoice therefore shouldn't be liable for an admin charge from the automatic creation of a chasing letter.
 
robj20 said:
"The admin fee will remain on the account to be paid, this will not be chased on its own."

Basically just ignore it then, it will show up forever but they won't chase you.
Keep a copy of that mail.
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Will that not just delay it 12 months? Say OP pays £270 again next year, will £30 of that go towards the outstanding admin charge then result in a passive-aggressive letter stating full payment wasn't made?
 
Transform_IT said:
Their reply:

"[...] these have been sent to the correct address [...]"
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"Prove it."

Or if you want to be a bit less blunt.

"I have advised you several times that I did not receive either the initial invoice or arrears letter, therefore as far as I am concerned they were not sent to me correctly. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I consider this matter closed. Any further attempts to contact me about this will incur a £60 admin fee, payable within 30 days"
 
I'd echo the above bit, although wouldn't bother with the charging them admin fees for responding.

Without any proof then I don't think they'd have a leg to stand on. Obviously if they do come back with proof then you're backed a bit into the corner. At this stage though you've got nothing to lose but a bit of time to write an email.
 
Haggisman said:
"Prove it."

Or if you want to be a bit less blunt.

"I have advised you several times that I did not receive either the initial invoice or arrears letter, therefore as far as I am concerned they were not sent to me correctly. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I consider this matter closed. Any further attempts to contact me about this will incur a £60 admin fee, payable within 30 days"
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Their next step will be to inform the OP that he was made aware of the payment schedule in the information pack that was supplied when the property was purchased - source; that's what mine said and they weren't wrong either, the fact is that my solicitor failed to forward said documentation to me.
 
Semple said:
I'd echo the above bit, although wouldn't bother with the charging them admin fees for responding.
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Boring... Also, the OP is wasting time on this, so why shouldn't he charge them for it? Don't know about you, but my time isn't free and I have far more valuable things I'd rather being doing with it (like posting nonsense on OcUK :p). Let's just say £60 is a bit of a bargain as it's significantly less than I'd be charging per day (or part thereof) in consultancy fees.

Semple said:
Obviously if they do come back with proof then you're backed a bit into the corner.
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In which case better to find out now than when they've started court proceedings (still a bit **** that Royal Mail losing your post is potentially costing you £30 and you have no comeback against them...)

Dano said:
Their next step will be to inform the OP that he was made aware of the payment schedule in the information pack that was supplied when the property was purchased - source; that's what mine said and they weren't wrong either, the fact is that my solicitor failed to forward said documentation to me.
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How much should he have paid then? Considering he says in the OP that the amount changes each year.
 
Rainmaker said:
Civil procedure rules 6.26:
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They need evidence of postage, as the receiving person can argue that if he had not received it then how would said person know. And yes I used it once in court judge agreed.
What you pointed out are guidelines the judge has final say.


Problem is this country people pay with out questioning anything, this is what companies are charging for anything these days and people allow it.

I remember I was shopping and then they tried to charge me for paper bags, I told the cashier if they charge me I walk away and I would leave the shopping at the till.
 
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Hope you get this sorted OP, they seem hell bent on getting that £30!

We looked at a 'new' (less than 5 years old) build last year, and noticed that there was an annual fee for upkeep of the area - the sum total for upkeep was an elongated triangle of scrubby bushes; maybe 2.5 cars long, and 3/4 of a car's width, and a small grass embankment around the corner from the house, behind allocated parking for 4 other houses. The cost for this upkeep was £150!

Having a nosey around online, as I hadn't encountered this before, it seems like there was a bit of scope for this fee to be treated as a license to print money; as there were several stories where the contractor had changed, and costs had risen by 50-100%, and the households could do nothing about it.
 
I live in a new-build estate and have the honour of also having a management company, luckily not ran into this problem yet but I get a copy of the annual bill in the post and also an email, so if one fails I should get the other. I know I get it every year but I could not tell you when, so like OP I'm unlikely to chase them for it until I get notification.

I am with you though OP, I'd fight the charge even beyond the £30 reduction they've made, waste more of their time if nothing else! :D

See if you can put a complaint in maybe, become Karen and ask to speak to the manager.

The charge they have put on your account will likely need to be settled when you come to sell, that is how they will eventually get it from you, when you sell the account will have to be settled in full and the new buyer won't want to pay it (understandably).
 
robj20 said:
"The admin fee will remain on the account to be paid, this will not be chased on its own."

Basically just ignore it then, it will show up forever but they won't chase you.
Keep a copy of that mail.
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That's what I did, I ignored some late fees and stupid £25 charges for letters from some freeholder managing agent, paid my ground rent up to date. They kept on claiming I owed them these fees (nothing about them in the lease so they can jog on), a couple of years later the freeholder management company changed and those late fees the previous one tried to charge me all vanished - legally I was obliged to pay ground rent, which I paid and was up to date with at the time the new company took over ergo nothing for them to charge me other than the next installment of the same.
 
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