Hi All
I wonder if anyone could help me regarding a 'back' yearly accounts of our block of flats service charges.
All 5 flats moved in to a new block between Aug and Dec 05 - at that time we were told the s/c for yr ending March 06 would be approx £20 a month per flat. The following year (April 06 - March 07) we never had a s/c increase - it stayed at approx £20 p.m and this info was given to us as a s/c budget sent to all residents in Feb 06. By September 06 I had expected to receive a copy of the s/c accounts statement but it never arrived and after a couple of letters requesting this I received from Hyde Housing in January 07 a letter from our housing officer with a copy of the budget for the current year, but not the statement I had requested.
A few weeks later another budget for year (April 07 - March 0
arrived with a huge hike in the charge from £20p.m to £110p.m mainly because of the cleaning and gardening contracts. We negotiated with Hyde and took on these contracts ourselves reducing the payments to £38p.m.
At this point I should say that the cleaning service only started in Nov 06 and we had three visits from gardeners over the period of Summer 06 to March 07.
In August 07 I received a letter from Hyde saying they were enclosing a statement for the year April 06 - March 07 (this wasn't enclosed). The letter went on to say that as the charges had amounted to over £3000 for this period, they would contribute approx £1750 and we would have to come up with the £1500 deficit which would be added to our charges in April 08 - March 09.
After this I wrote two emails, two letters and a phone call to Hyde's offices asking for a copy of the statement and also one from the previous year as I had previously requested but which had never arrived. I never received an answer to any of these communications.
I finally went through the complaints process before Christmas and received a copy of the statement for March 06 - April 07 last week with a note saying that they didn't have any copies of any statements for previous years. I have since been in email contact with this Housing Officer and asked for copies of all invoices etc relating to the grounds and cleaning contracts since Aug 05 when we all moved in. Today I received an email back saying that no invoices were kept and this information is kept on spreadsheet format which he enclosed. From the spreadsheet he sent we have only ever had three monthly charges (Jan - March 07) for grounds in the amount of £158 each (which to my maths does not add up to the £1600 odd they have put on the statement from last year) and since Sept 06 to date we are being charged approx £158 per month for cleaning - even though we have taken this contract on ourselves from April 07. I've asked for a meeting on Friday at their offices which I'm planning on attending to go through these charges but needed some advice prior to this if possible.
I've read through some of the previous section 21 posts on service charges statements and review of invoices but wondered if anyone could clarify this in non legal speak? I've never actually requested to view the invoices or statements under section 21 - do I have to actually say this or is my written request to look at these valid? I cannot get my head around the fact that they say they have no statement for the previous year and yet came up with over a £3000 shortfall - surely they can't just make numbers up as they go along which is what they seem to have done.
Any help, advice or support would be appreciated.
One other point I must make is that all 5 flats are shared ownership properties although none of us own 100% of any of the properties - does this make any difference?
Many thanks to you all.
RSL Service Charge - No yearly account/statement 
