News

Central London solicitors firm Seddons have formed a team, in conjunction with a barrister from 3 Hare Court and Chartered Surveyors Congreve Horner, to assist groups of long lessees living in Council owned properties who may face huge service charge bills for works to buildings that are unnecessary.

Leon Golstein of Seddons Landlord and Tenant team comments; "This is a very real cause of anxiety to home owners, but there is a very effective and independent Tribunal procedure available to any worried lessee who wishes to verify the extent of major works which a Council may be proposing to undertake and the reasonableness of the cost". 

Jane Canham, Associate, and Sherrie Munroe, Legal Executive in the Landlord and Tenant team are currently advising a group of lessees on a West London estate where each lessee is facing a personal bill in excess of £25,000.  Kensington & Chelsea, Islington and Camden boroughs each have 9,000 privately contributing lessees alone, taken across the other 31 London Boroughs, more than 300,000 London tenants could be affected.

Robert Horner, of surveyors Congreve Horner commented “We supported one of the original cases back in 2006 where £2m of works were undertaken on the Cremorne Estate (known as the World’s End Estate) in Chelsea and we were able to achieve a 50% reduction in the costs for private lessees there.  We have seen other cases where lessees have been presented with bills between £9,000 and £40,000 each. There is an ongoing situation where the cost of replacing windows in a tower block will be £12m-£20m – the lessees there must be very concerned”.

Paul Letman of 3 Hare Court explained “The first step is for lessees to combine forces when they become aware of renovation works.  Then we can send in Robert and his surveyors to assess the extent to which the works are required or not.  The Seddons team will then liaise with the local authority to try to reduce the cost where appropriate and then make an application to the LVT (Leasehold Valuation Tribunal) if these discussions prove fruitless.  Our role is then to provide representation at that hearing”.

Councils obtain funds for the repair and refurbishment of their housing stock from local taxes and Central Government.  A large proportion of that stock now houses former council tenants who are now private owners, as well as those to whom former tenants have since sold.

The need for repair and refurbishment of housing is  necessary but Council property managers with large public funds available to them, are often insensitive to the financial plight of paying lessees.  There are published decisions of the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal of some Councils having extended the remit of what they are doing to include work that is not a necessary repair and which lessees might consider to be completely avoidable.  For example upgrading the roof design on an estate to sloping tiled roofs at substantially greater cost than would have been incurred in merely resurfacing the existing flat roof structure.  The wholesale replacement of windows with double glazed units where many windows remain sound and repairable is also a practice to be wary of.

Government grants to improve housing stock to the “Decent Homes Standard” have certain qualification criteria. The expenditure should extend the lives of various parts of the building, for example roofs and windows to a minimum of 30 years.  Perfectly good standards of repair which are probably cheaper are therefore disregarded in favour of a higher standard in order to qualify for the funding.