I'm posting this message and would be grateful for any advise on this matter. Thanks! We purchased a terraced house in a cul-de-sac last October and promptly paid the annual estates mangement fee of £470 promptly. However, from Jan - present, no work has been done including garden maintenance. In July, we received an email from the new Estates company informing us that they have been appointed to replace the old company and asked for some more money. I emailed back with the following questions: 1) Who appointed them? Why wasn't there any communication/consultation with us (the landlords) on this matter? 2) How will we be reimbursed for the fees paid since no work has been done for the past 8 months? 3) What are the services that are covered by the fees? We also pay council tax, should the council be responsible for matters such as litter collection and repairing of roads? We received a non-commital response which didn't answer our questions. After speaking to some of our neighbours, we realised that one neighbour set up a management company who has been managing the past and present estates company. When I posed the questions as above, she responded as follows: a) it is a legal requirement to have a management company in the estate, otherwise, we will not be able to sell our property in the future 2) we will not be able to re-coup any of the fees as the money has been given to the new estates company 3) If we refuse to pay anny future fees, we will face legal consequences We feel very unsettled with the response as it simply doesn't make sense and feel strongly that there should be more transparency when managing these affairs. There are a total of 24 units who pay the annual fee of £460 each which total an amount of £11,000 and it seem a very large fund to be handled by a single person with no consultation whatsoever. Please can I have some advice on what are our rights on this matter and where do we stand. Is this neighbour acting suspiciously? Can we refuse to pay anymore fees? Thanks!