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Date of issue of claim form: 19/11/05
Date of service: 24/11/05
Particulars:
By virtue of a Transfer the Claimant is the owner and/or manager of a rentcharge over the freehold property known as [MY ADDRESS].
The defendant is the registered proprietor and owner of the property and in default of the terms of the Transfer has failed to pay the rents and fees due currently being [ABOUT £3,000].
The Claimant claims this sum from the defendant.
The Claimant claims 8% p.a interest pursuant to Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 being [ABOUT £170] to date and thereafter interest at £0.56p per day. Alternatively contractual interest.
The Claimant further claims under the Transfer terms legal costs incurred to date being [ABOUT £700].
The Claimant will also claim all legal and other costs incurred until payment in full.
My notes on the Particulars:
This is typed out verbatim with just the details and amounts which might allow me to be identified obfuscated in CAPS.
My notes on this thread in general:
Sorry! Just read back what I have written and it is an absolutely mammoth amount of text - I've really tried to be as brief as possible to explain what is (to me) a pretty complicated situation. Really hope someone will have the patience to read through it all and be able to make sense - please ask right away if you need me to clarify anything or if I haven't been particularly clear about a specific detail.
Background.
Hi everyone. I'm writing this because I'm a bit stuck about what to do - I do admit some liability here but definitely feel that I am being treated unfairly. The background is quite complex so I hope that someone here will have the patience to stick with me while I explain it!
Firstly, I've submitted the acknowledgement (but nothing else) on moneyclaimonline, after reading the advice here. I've stated my intention to defend part of the claim.
This is about maintenance charges for the grounds of the private housing development which my house is within. I am the freehold property owner of my own home, which is basically an outbuilding within a a redeveloped residential complex. The majority of residents of the housing development are leasehold owners, living within a single large building converted to multiple residences. My property, along with a small number of others, was sold off freehold. So I own the house, but pay maintenance charges for the grounds, which includes paying for upkeep of exterior lighting, driveways, gardens and a security gate.
I have not paid this maintenance charge, for a number of reasons, since shortly after buying my house in 2010. To start with, although we made an initial payment, we did not receive a further bill or any notification of the charges which would be due, for over a year. When the bill and notification of charges did arrive, we saw that we had been vastly overbilled. We had been charged the same amount as the leasehold property owners in the main building, despite the fact that we, as freehold owners of properties outside of the main building, are not liable (under the terms of our Transfer) for upkeep of the main building - these include the communal hallways, building exteriors and an elevator. The result of this was that we were billed around £1,200 instead of the £400 we were told would be the amount we should expect. We raised this with the property management company who eventually admitted their mistake and sent a revised bill, several months later.
By this time, however, a host of issues with the performance of the management company had arisen. This included failure to keep their obligations of maintaining the grounds (essential work went uncompleted for lengthy periods of time, exterior safety lights were not maintained and the development was in darkness for long periods, routine maintenance of the grounds was not carried out or was carried out to a poor standard, and in one instance which did not affect me, a neighbour was forced out of his house for an extended period when asbestos was discovered, and the management company delayed work to have it removed).
As a result of these issues, and while still awaiting a correct bill for my own payments towards the maintenance charge, I informed the management company that I would not be paying the maintenance charge until I had:
1 - Been presented with a correct bill
2 - Was satisfied that they were upholding their obligations.
Shortly after this, I, along with other residents of the development, both freeholders and leaseholders, began making arrangements under the "right to manage" provisions to either take on management of the development ourselves, or to "fire" the management company (going to start calling it MC1) and replace it with one which we hoped would do a better job (MC2). This was the option which was eventually chosen. Eventually some time in 2013 the leaseholders formed a Right To Manage (RTM) group and went ahead and appointed a new management company to maintain the main building. MC1 retained (for now) responsibility for maintaining the grounds (my liability).
The reason I have included this detail about the RTM, is partly because I think the fact that the residents had democratically decided to "fire" the management company indicates there was a widespread belief it was not performing its duties as would be expected?
In October last year, the freehold for the main building and the grounds were sold. The new owner (the Claimant in my case) also discharged MC1 from its duties and appointed MC2 to maintain the grounds, presumably for the sake of convenience as they were already maintaining (under appointment by the RTM) the main building.
At this point I was not sure what was going to happen to the 2 and a half years' worth of maintenance charge which I had not paid to MC1 as they had not been upholding their obligations . The debt had not been pursued for some time, nor had I been presented with further bills, from the time I stated I was going to withhold payment. I admit to being a bit of an optimist, however, sometimes a bit overly so - so I admit that part of me did think that maybe it would be forgotten about, after all it was in dispute at the time the management company was relieved of its responsibilities. It certainly didn't seem fair or likely to me that the entire disputed amount would be passed on to the new freeholder, simply as a debt which it was now owed.
In April this year, MC2 contacted me demanding full payment of the unpaid charges, including all of the amount which had been disputed at the point which MC1 was "fired".
I wrote back to them expressing surprise that it seemed the debt had been "passed on" - as was my genuine understanding. I later found out that this was possibly because my debt was not to the management company, but to the freeholder itself. However I did not understand this at the time and MC2 did not explain it to me. I also clearly stated (as I had done during several other correspondences) that I was happy to admit liability for the charges relating to periods where I had been receiving satisfactory service and was willing to consider any reasonable settlement which they might propose.
I heard nothing more from them and awaited their response until September, when I again received a demand for the full amount. I requested clarification and was sent a copy of the Transfer document which explains that the obligation to pay maintenance charges is passed between freeholders, on the occasion of a sale of the freehold. However, and I feel crucially to my defence, it does not appear to state that a DEBT relating to failure to pay past maintenance charges is passed from the selling freeholder (FH1) to the purchasing Freeholder (FH2).
In October MC2 appointed solicitors who wrote to me making full demand once again. I replied, again stating that I was happy to come to an amicable arrangement, but I was not willing to pay service charges relating to the periods where I (along with the rest of the residents) was in dispute with MC1 over the service we were receiving. I also stated that it was unfair that they had added around £300 in legal fees to the amount being demanded, when I had stated from the outset that I was willing to compromise to reach an agreement, but no offer had been forthcoming, and no response was received to my offers.
MC2's legal representatives wrote back again at the start of November, again failing to acknowledge my offers of reaching amicable settlement and simply demanding full payment. They gave me one week to respond, and I failed to meet that deadline because it took me a while to carry out further research, which involved speaking to a lot of my neighbours to try and get an understanding of the RTM situation. I responded two days after their deadline.
For the first time this response included an amount of money offered, in recognition of my liability for some of the charge. I offered around £500 which reflected that I was willing to pay the maintenance charges dating from the time of appointment of MC2 (which did seem to be performing its duties to an acceptable standard). It reflected that I was unwilling to pay charges dating from the period when MC1 was under contract, as:
1) They never performed their duty to a satisfactory standard
2) They consistently failed to provide me with a correct bill
3) The mechanism through which the debt has been seemingly passed from MC1 to MC2 was never clearly explained to me.
4) A large portion of the amount claimed related to legal fees which would not have been necessary if the company had been clearer about the nature of the debts, and responsive to my attempts to reach an amicable settlement
I received a reply from them a day later (by far the quickest they have ever responded) telling me that as I failed to meet their deadline, proceedings had begun against me. I received the claim in the post a few days later.
So, that's where I am right now, I hope at least someone with some legal knowledge has managed to make it through that essay, but I don't blame anyone who didn't! In short, and omitting a lot of detail (most of which is up there if you want it) -
I feel it is unfair that the new owner is claiming that I now owe a debt to them, which was disputed between myself and the previous owner. The previous owner failed to keep obligations of maintaining the property (evidenced by their agents - MC1 - being "fired" by both the residents' RTM company, and later the new freeholders.) I feel that this means that they were in breach of contract and I was within rights to withold payments. The fact that the (disputed) debt was passed from freeholder to freeholder seems unfair to me.
But, the problem is, its so complicated I don't know if I will have a leg to stand on when it comes to a defence. The fact is that unfortunately all of my correspondence with MC1 concerning the disputed debt was undocumented (mostly phone calls) and the situation wasn't resolved at the time at which they departed the picture.
I will be hugely grateful for any advice that anyone can offer - particularly after spending all day today getting everything straight and typing this up! Then I'll think about how to respond, as I see it now I have 2 options:
1 - Dispute part of the claim on the basis that the service was not delivered, the previous freeholder (through their appointed management company) were in breach of contract, and the details of the transfer were never clearly explained to me
2 - Bite the bullet and pay up - on the basis that it's so complicated and involves so many players (two freeholders, two management companies, and myself) and much of my defence is not documented so I will be relying on the court taking me on my word, meaning I'm likely to lose and end up paying a higher final settlement
Date of service: 24/11/05
Particulars:
By virtue of a Transfer the Claimant is the owner and/or manager of a rentcharge over the freehold property known as [MY ADDRESS].
The defendant is the registered proprietor and owner of the property and in default of the terms of the Transfer has failed to pay the rents and fees due currently being [ABOUT £3,000].
The Claimant claims this sum from the defendant.
The Claimant claims 8% p.a interest pursuant to Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 being [ABOUT £170] to date and thereafter interest at £0.56p per day. Alternatively contractual interest.
The Claimant further claims under the Transfer terms legal costs incurred to date being [ABOUT £700].
The Claimant will also claim all legal and other costs incurred until payment in full.
My notes on the Particulars:
This is typed out verbatim with just the details and amounts which might allow me to be identified obfuscated in CAPS.
My notes on this thread in general:
Sorry! Just read back what I have written and it is an absolutely mammoth amount of text - I've really tried to be as brief as possible to explain what is (to me) a pretty complicated situation. Really hope someone will have the patience to read through it all and be able to make sense - please ask right away if you need me to clarify anything or if I haven't been particularly clear about a specific detail.
Background.
Hi everyone. I'm writing this because I'm a bit stuck about what to do - I do admit some liability here but definitely feel that I am being treated unfairly. The background is quite complex so I hope that someone here will have the patience to stick with me while I explain it!
Firstly, I've submitted the acknowledgement (but nothing else) on moneyclaimonline, after reading the advice here. I've stated my intention to defend part of the claim.
This is about maintenance charges for the grounds of the private housing development which my house is within. I am the freehold property owner of my own home, which is basically an outbuilding within a a redeveloped residential complex. The majority of residents of the housing development are leasehold owners, living within a single large building converted to multiple residences. My property, along with a small number of others, was sold off freehold. So I own the house, but pay maintenance charges for the grounds, which includes paying for upkeep of exterior lighting, driveways, gardens and a security gate.
I have not paid this maintenance charge, for a number of reasons, since shortly after buying my house in 2010. To start with, although we made an initial payment, we did not receive a further bill or any notification of the charges which would be due, for over a year. When the bill and notification of charges did arrive, we saw that we had been vastly overbilled. We had been charged the same amount as the leasehold property owners in the main building, despite the fact that we, as freehold owners of properties outside of the main building, are not liable (under the terms of our Transfer) for upkeep of the main building - these include the communal hallways, building exteriors and an elevator. The result of this was that we were billed around £1,200 instead of the £400 we were told would be the amount we should expect. We raised this with the property management company who eventually admitted their mistake and sent a revised bill, several months later.
By this time, however, a host of issues with the performance of the management company had arisen. This included failure to keep their obligations of maintaining the grounds (essential work went uncompleted for lengthy periods of time, exterior safety lights were not maintained and the development was in darkness for long periods, routine maintenance of the grounds was not carried out or was carried out to a poor standard, and in one instance which did not affect me, a neighbour was forced out of his house for an extended period when asbestos was discovered, and the management company delayed work to have it removed).
As a result of these issues, and while still awaiting a correct bill for my own payments towards the maintenance charge, I informed the management company that I would not be paying the maintenance charge until I had:
1 - Been presented with a correct bill
2 - Was satisfied that they were upholding their obligations.
Shortly after this, I, along with other residents of the development, both freeholders and leaseholders, began making arrangements under the "right to manage" provisions to either take on management of the development ourselves, or to "fire" the management company (going to start calling it MC1) and replace it with one which we hoped would do a better job (MC2). This was the option which was eventually chosen. Eventually some time in 2013 the leaseholders formed a Right To Manage (RTM) group and went ahead and appointed a new management company to maintain the main building. MC1 retained (for now) responsibility for maintaining the grounds (my liability).
The reason I have included this detail about the RTM, is partly because I think the fact that the residents had democratically decided to "fire" the management company indicates there was a widespread belief it was not performing its duties as would be expected?
In October last year, the freehold for the main building and the grounds were sold. The new owner (the Claimant in my case) also discharged MC1 from its duties and appointed MC2 to maintain the grounds, presumably for the sake of convenience as they were already maintaining (under appointment by the RTM) the main building.
At this point I was not sure what was going to happen to the 2 and a half years' worth of maintenance charge which I had not paid to MC1 as they had not been upholding their obligations . The debt had not been pursued for some time, nor had I been presented with further bills, from the time I stated I was going to withhold payment. I admit to being a bit of an optimist, however, sometimes a bit overly so - so I admit that part of me did think that maybe it would be forgotten about, after all it was in dispute at the time the management company was relieved of its responsibilities. It certainly didn't seem fair or likely to me that the entire disputed amount would be passed on to the new freeholder, simply as a debt which it was now owed.
In April this year, MC2 contacted me demanding full payment of the unpaid charges, including all of the amount which had been disputed at the point which MC1 was "fired".
I wrote back to them expressing surprise that it seemed the debt had been "passed on" - as was my genuine understanding. I later found out that this was possibly because my debt was not to the management company, but to the freeholder itself. However I did not understand this at the time and MC2 did not explain it to me. I also clearly stated (as I had done during several other correspondences) that I was happy to admit liability for the charges relating to periods where I had been receiving satisfactory service and was willing to consider any reasonable settlement which they might propose.
I heard nothing more from them and awaited their response until September, when I again received a demand for the full amount. I requested clarification and was sent a copy of the Transfer document which explains that the obligation to pay maintenance charges is passed between freeholders, on the occasion of a sale of the freehold. However, and I feel crucially to my defence, it does not appear to state that a DEBT relating to failure to pay past maintenance charges is passed from the selling freeholder (FH1) to the purchasing Freeholder (FH2).
In October MC2 appointed solicitors who wrote to me making full demand once again. I replied, again stating that I was happy to come to an amicable arrangement, but I was not willing to pay service charges relating to the periods where I (along with the rest of the residents) was in dispute with MC1 over the service we were receiving. I also stated that it was unfair that they had added around £300 in legal fees to the amount being demanded, when I had stated from the outset that I was willing to compromise to reach an agreement, but no offer had been forthcoming, and no response was received to my offers.
MC2's legal representatives wrote back again at the start of November, again failing to acknowledge my offers of reaching amicable settlement and simply demanding full payment. They gave me one week to respond, and I failed to meet that deadline because it took me a while to carry out further research, which involved speaking to a lot of my neighbours to try and get an understanding of the RTM situation. I responded two days after their deadline.
For the first time this response included an amount of money offered, in recognition of my liability for some of the charge. I offered around £500 which reflected that I was willing to pay the maintenance charges dating from the time of appointment of MC2 (which did seem to be performing its duties to an acceptable standard). It reflected that I was unwilling to pay charges dating from the period when MC1 was under contract, as:
1) They never performed their duty to a satisfactory standard
2) They consistently failed to provide me with a correct bill
3) The mechanism through which the debt has been seemingly passed from MC1 to MC2 was never clearly explained to me.
4) A large portion of the amount claimed related to legal fees which would not have been necessary if the company had been clearer about the nature of the debts, and responsive to my attempts to reach an amicable settlement
I received a reply from them a day later (by far the quickest they have ever responded) telling me that as I failed to meet their deadline, proceedings had begun against me. I received the claim in the post a few days later.
So, that's where I am right now, I hope at least someone with some legal knowledge has managed to make it through that essay, but I don't blame anyone who didn't! In short, and omitting a lot of detail (most of which is up there if you want it) -
I feel it is unfair that the new owner is claiming that I now owe a debt to them, which was disputed between myself and the previous owner. The previous owner failed to keep obligations of maintaining the property (evidenced by their agents - MC1 - being "fired" by both the residents' RTM company, and later the new freeholders.) I feel that this means that they were in breach of contract and I was within rights to withold payments. The fact that the (disputed) debt was passed from freeholder to freeholder seems unfair to me.
But, the problem is, its so complicated I don't know if I will have a leg to stand on when it comes to a defence. The fact is that unfortunately all of my correspondence with MC1 concerning the disputed debt was undocumented (mostly phone calls) and the situation wasn't resolved at the time at which they departed the picture.
I will be hugely grateful for any advice that anyone can offer - particularly after spending all day today getting everything straight and typing this up! Then I'll think about how to respond, as I see it now I have 2 options:
1 - Dispute part of the claim on the basis that the service was not delivered, the previous freeholder (through their appointed management company) were in breach of contract, and the details of the transfer were never clearly explained to me
2 - Bite the bullet and pay up - on the basis that it's so complicated and involves so many players (two freeholders, two management companies, and myself) and much of my defence is not documented so I will be relying on the court taking me on my word, meaning I'm likely to lose and end up paying a higher final settlement
