Joint Ownership of property and Costs of maintenance etc

[Donchik]

Dear Beagles,

Within our family, which is not a loving one, we jointly own a property. Complex on how this occurred, but the problem is some of the owners are refusing to pay towards the necessary expenses of owning the property. For example simple, but essential, maintenance and management like gardening, Insurance, Council Tax etc. To prevent issues the remaining owners are paying for this themselves which is not an equitable situation.

Attempts to get the delinquent parties to pay their fair share have fallen on deaf ears, and they will not even engage. Do we have any options to force them to take their responsibilities seriously, or is the only option to pay ourselves then regularly file small claims to recover the funds paid?

All suggestion welcome

[Amethyst]

Do you have an agreement in writing between you all as to the costs of maintenance ?

What is the ultimate aim for the property? When it is sold it will have the equity split between all the owners ? ( inform the owners who are not contributing that any spends on maintaining the property will be taken out of their share when it is sold? ) Or if the property is being rented out and providing an income, can the amounts spent on maintenance be subtracted from their share of the rental income ?

[Donchik]

Hello Amethyst,

Thank you for responding. We do not have anything formal, I suppose we assumed that as we all owned a share, we'd be responsible for the share of costs as well. Never really expected such ridiculous arguments.

The property is not rented out, and will hopefully be placed for sale in the future when all can agree.

The "Paying" owners are not happy to fund the "Non-paying" owners going forward as we're being stretched to find the money. The "Non-paying" owners are not short of money, just short of ethics methinks!

Is their any law which might support the equitable allocation of costs? Repeatedly using the small claims court feels like a real pain.

One option is that we may be able to raise some money by letting out parking at the property. Would we need the approval of all owners to do this, or can one group of owners do this unilaterally as long as they equally share any profit.

Many thanks,
D.

[2222]

"Repeatedly using the small claims court feels like a real pain." I won't answer the other questions, but I would say that there are some costs for defendants involved in the process, which will transfer a good deal of the pain to the defendants (assuming you are successful!).

Mostly, these costs are court fees, which can amount to a fair bit. For a £3k claim, the issue fee is £185 and the hearing fee £335.

Also, the claimants can add fixed commencement costs to the claim. For a typical claim between £1-5k this comes to £80, which the claimants get to keep. You may be able to claim for some of your time at a rate of a few pounds an hour. I've never bothered.

So, just one run through the court system will cost the recalcitrant owners around £600 on top of what they owe you. That's enough of an ouch that they'll probably want to avoid it going forwards.