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Hello,
Being leaseholder in one of four maisonettes in the building, the repairs and their apportionment is set out in my lease - it explicitly states charges are apportioned for the 4 units in this building. The ground map and all associated descriptions spell out the property and the grounds for my maisonette's case.
However, freeholder / landlord (a housing association) keeps charging me for repairs that occurred on the road where they have several freehold title deeds and a total of dozens of units (flats or maisonettes).
The location of the works in the past have been not only outside the ground map of my lease, but several times even outside the freehold title deed's ground map.
They apportion these works across all the units they have freehold on.
Every time when these work items charged under repairs were challenged by me, they eventually made the corrections and even refunded me (if payments were taken by the direct debit) or dropped those work items from the charges. This took sometimes 4 months of nonsensical battles that kept trying to circumvent facts in my lease and all directly matching previous cases.
Now they have done it again, as an almost annual reoccurrence. I am again starting from zero, they act as if no matching precedents existed, as if they have not even checked in past cases with their solicitor (!) to grudgingly arrive in the end at the needed corrections, and as if they knew what was in my lease - which has been repeatedly proven as false. They make general statements that are directly contradicting my lease.
I have no idea whether this time I can again prove, after vast amount of time and effort spent on lease and legal basics, their repeated error. Once again, two work items on the road are charged and apportioned across all units on the road (this time bit closer to my property but still outside lease ground map, one even definitely outside freehold deed's ground map, and the other still unknown in terms of exact location - but definitely outside lease ground map)
However, I am trying to understand overall due to above repeating pattern:
- How can they keep trying mental and semantic acrobatics (that so far ended in their failure) claiming that works outside my lease ground map can be charged? Even though lease describes this and even specifically the apportioning only for 4 units and only for this building.
- Is their repeatedly tried argument valid that even if something is not on lease ground map, if it is on freehold title deed's ground map then I "benefit" from it and can be charged? Even this argument failed so far in cases where work was outside the freehold ground map, but what if one falls inside it - and unrelated to the building where I have my maisonette?
- And apart from escalating slowly to Ombudsman, what can be done about a freeholder / landlord who goes tabula rasa and repeats the same mistakes and every time makes all kinds of false or incredibly contorted claims about what they can charge even if it happened outside mentioned ground maps and lease-stipulated repairs?
I am truly exasperated, every year on receipt of their financial statement I have to start from zero, uphill battle, months of arguing until - so far- the fundamental legal facts are acknowledged and they take corrective actions. But the trend is not going that way, they went from 3-4 days turnaround on correcting such mistakes to 4 months last time and now I am starting again.
Any insight would be hugely appreciated... and thanks in advance
Being leaseholder in one of four maisonettes in the building, the repairs and their apportionment is set out in my lease - it explicitly states charges are apportioned for the 4 units in this building. The ground map and all associated descriptions spell out the property and the grounds for my maisonette's case.
However, freeholder / landlord (a housing association) keeps charging me for repairs that occurred on the road where they have several freehold title deeds and a total of dozens of units (flats or maisonettes).
The location of the works in the past have been not only outside the ground map of my lease, but several times even outside the freehold title deed's ground map.
They apportion these works across all the units they have freehold on.
Every time when these work items charged under repairs were challenged by me, they eventually made the corrections and even refunded me (if payments were taken by the direct debit) or dropped those work items from the charges. This took sometimes 4 months of nonsensical battles that kept trying to circumvent facts in my lease and all directly matching previous cases.
Now they have done it again, as an almost annual reoccurrence. I am again starting from zero, they act as if no matching precedents existed, as if they have not even checked in past cases with their solicitor (!) to grudgingly arrive in the end at the needed corrections, and as if they knew what was in my lease - which has been repeatedly proven as false. They make general statements that are directly contradicting my lease.
I have no idea whether this time I can again prove, after vast amount of time and effort spent on lease and legal basics, their repeated error. Once again, two work items on the road are charged and apportioned across all units on the road (this time bit closer to my property but still outside lease ground map, one even definitely outside freehold deed's ground map, and the other still unknown in terms of exact location - but definitely outside lease ground map)
However, I am trying to understand overall due to above repeating pattern:
- How can they keep trying mental and semantic acrobatics (that so far ended in their failure) claiming that works outside my lease ground map can be charged? Even though lease describes this and even specifically the apportioning only for 4 units and only for this building.
- Is their repeatedly tried argument valid that even if something is not on lease ground map, if it is on freehold title deed's ground map then I "benefit" from it and can be charged? Even this argument failed so far in cases where work was outside the freehold ground map, but what if one falls inside it - and unrelated to the building where I have my maisonette?
- And apart from escalating slowly to Ombudsman, what can be done about a freeholder / landlord who goes tabula rasa and repeats the same mistakes and every time makes all kinds of false or incredibly contorted claims about what they can charge even if it happened outside mentioned ground maps and lease-stipulated repairs?
I am truly exasperated, every year on receipt of their financial statement I have to start from zero, uphill battle, months of arguing until - so far- the fundamental legal facts are acknowledged and they take corrective actions. But the trend is not going that way, they went from 3-4 days turnaround on correcting such mistakes to 4 months last time and now I am starting again.
Any insight would be hugely appreciated... and thanks in advance
