can i Reclaim these charges? 15% administration charge

[muggz]

Hi there,

i rent out my home through a housing group as i cant afford to pay the mortgage. They pay me rent every month and give the house to people who are on a council waiting list.

The housing group constantly charge me for repairs, which i guess is ok as its benifiting the house (altho i lived there for 18 years and never paid as much for general repairs as i have done in the last 3 years of renting) however they charge a whopping administration fee of 15% if they use there own contractors.

Please read the letter below

Re: outstanding repairs

i refer to my recent inspection at the above address where i was disappointed to find that the repairs listed below from our previous letter dated 05/12/06 have not been carried out:

attend defective door lock leading to the garden
invistage and make good leak
repair rollers on the sliding wardrobe doors

please not that as you have failed to responsd to our previous letter i would be grateful if you could please contact me with details of when you propose to start works on the property by 14th feb. If you fail to respond to this letter we will have no alternative but to instruct the Associations contactor to carry out the repairs on your behalf.

please note that there is a 15% administration fee as well of the cost of rectifying the disrepair and that we are unable to provide quotes for the likely cost of the work, as this would require a visit to the property by our contractor, which would be subject to a call out fee and administration fee of 15%.


I dont understand why they charge 15% of the repair charge as admin fee, is this unlawful? how can they justify the costs for this? i was charged £5k in repairs last year. surely this isnt fair, ive paid out so much money to them because of this

I would be grateful for any help