Lease help

[icecreamman]

Hi!

I purchased a flat on lease for 99 year, i have to pay ground rent, service charge and insurance, which to date is to be honest in arreas, my reason for this is the land owner lives in france and i have never had forwarding address also the agency who i was ment to pay to shut down and left no forwarding address so not much has been paid,

as a result of this i am being forced with fortifer proceedings and my landlord speaking to my mortgage firm, unless i pay my ground rent service charge etc plus interest plus solicitors fees and admin charges.

What i need to ask is can the land owner charge these extras ie interest admin and and make me pay his solicitors costs? and i must stress that these have been added before any proceedings, also looking close at my insurance it states there is £3000 of his contents in the building which is untrue i bought the flat empty, and in addition to this the land owner has never done any work to the building,

I now have this huge bill which with all the additions a cant afford to pay, now if my solicitor made himself available or the agency left there contact details then i could have paid the true sum, what can i do:-(

[MrShed]

I am guessing here...but I fail to see how rent can legally be due until you have an address in England and Wales for the landlord. There is certainly a similar rule for tenancies...

[surfaceagentx20]

I imagine the proceedings you are subject to are forefeiture proceedings. Am I right?

 

Do you have a copy of the lease to hand? What does it say is the method by which rent etc is to be paid? Was there anything about making payment by direct debit to a specified account? Has that account changed since? Have you been notified of some other acount? Have you recevied a written demand for rent, notice of the insurance premium, anything at all which might be described as a demand for payment with an address to which to send payments?

 

When's the court hearing?

 

As far as legal costs are concerned, the lease usually incorporates a covenant (a promise) on the part of the tenant to indemnify the landlord for the costs of proceedings where there has been default. These costs can be assessed by the court since although there may be an obligation to indemnify, that obligation only extends to reasonable costs. It is not an obligation to write your landlord a blank cheque.

 

If there have been no demands or other disclosed method by which to make payment, arguably you are not in breach.

 

Some answers to these questions might assist in drilling deeper and unearthing a solution.

 

x20

[icecreamman]

Hi x20!

Yes that is correct, it will be forefeiture proceedings but as things stand at the moment there is no date, i have just looked at the insurance and it says that the new premium will be collected from the existing d/d mandate which is the land owners, digging deeper into the insurance most of it seems to be of the landlords benefit too ie section 2 landlords contents, fixtures, fittings and funishings £3000 this is just rubbish, though there is not £3000 of fixtures etc etc it seems that it only applies to him ie landlords fixtures etc etc, i dont no what rent receivable £4380 is but it seems that the insurance is pretty much to his benefit, unless the building falls down i get a new flat.

I havn't had time to look at lease yet but will get back to you, i do remember though that when i walked into the property for the first time there was a slip of paper hand written by land owner with agencys name for payment, when they shut there was nothing told or sent to me,

Oh i did get a letter through the post reg service charge, ground rent which stated an amount, this was wrong so i went to my solicitor where i purchased maisonette from and he comirmed it was wrong, i then wrote to his solicitor to say it was wrong but on him writing back to me it seems i am being charged for this letter and the first letter which they sent out which was incorrect at a cost of £700 plus some admin i think ontop, i think i would have been better off paying the wrong amount which was £300 higher than the right amount as i have now accrued £700 solicitors fees £149 interest plus admin etc,

Oh and my service charge which i have just checked is 250 for cleaning and looking after the drive, its never been done the guy lives in france!

i am the one who sweeps the front i just dont no how these people get away with it.

Now i have bored you to death ill dig out that lease, what do you think about the above though?

[icecreamman]

Hi ex20!

Thought i'd let you know that i have now instructed a solicitor as every time i tried to write to the other party there solicitor wrote back and added there charges to my bill so it was a bit of a catch 22, just to let you know my solicitor said that there costs were ridiculous and he also said he is able to change the contract so all sounds good at the mo, ill keep you posted;-)