Help and advice
Question: Could you please advise me, if a flat owner owes service charge money, where do we stand if we ask his tenant to pay the rent to us as the management until debt is clear?
Answer: Your contract is with the lessee, you have no contract with his sub-tenant. The sub-tenant’s contract is with the lessee, that sub-tenant has no contract with you. If you do what you suggest without a written agreement by the lessee to do so, that would risk a difficult situation with lawyers involved. The sub-tenant would be foolish to pay you as you are not the agent of the lessee and he has not therefore paid his rent to the person to whom it is due under the terms of his contract. If you are unable to obtain the money from the lessee, then you should instruct your solicitor, or whatever debt recovery service you use.
Question: I have recently moved into a flat (one of 30) and been asked to join the managing committee and have taken on the role of treasurer. Two invoices for repairs to two balconies (£4,000 each) contained very little information. Further information provided does not seem to justify the charge made. The decision for the work was done by one RMC director and a managing agent who has been replaced with a new managing agent who appears disinterested.
Answer: Presumably the two balconies are part of the common parts and the repair costs chargeable to the service charge account. Presumably statutory consultation procedures were followed. If in doubt, check both points. If the S.20 consultation procedures were followed and nobody objected at the time, my advice is to put the matter behind you and move on. Your question does not give the views of other committee members. If they are comfortable with the charge, my advice is the same.
If they are also concerned and you really feel that this is a large enough sum of money to justify investigation after the event, then you will need a report from a quantity surveyor. Far more important, for the future, ensure that there is a clear instruction to the managing agent that he should only authorise and pay bills when they have sufficient information to justify the charge. Typically, it should show the material costs separately from the labour costs such that the property manager has some proper basis on which to either authorise or challenge the payment demanded on the invoice.
Question: I am Secretary of a Residents’ Association. We have a
member who has been defaulting on payments to the Residents’ Association despite several reminders.
I would be grateful for
obtaining the advice about what the legal situation is and how we go about obtaining the monies should the need arise.
Answer: A Residents’ Association is not a limited liability company and rarely has a constitution or other basis upon which to take any action over unpaid membership payments. The usual remedy is to remove that person from membership. I do appreciate that most associations want as wide a membership as possible so that they are fully representative. Your question does not say what approaches have been made to the member to try to obtain payment.
It may be that, at the present time,
they just do not have the money, or it may be that they are unhappy with some decisions or actions being taken by the Association. Communicating with members, getting their views on important Association matters, and generally making them feel that membership of the Association is well justified by the cost of belonging to it, is an important part of the Secretary’s role.
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