Ground rent admin charges (Simarc)

[andydd]

HHmm..If you tell them, then they may well change it and re-send it and then it would be payable (although I'd argue it should be £25 or so).

 

Its upto you, when I was in that situation, I wrote back saying that I was willing to advise them on errors in their demand...........for a fee of £200

 

Ultimatley though they risk not being able to recover money from others due to this error, so £200 is a good deal.

 

What do the service charge demands look like ?, they might be wrong too. Due to similar errors by my Freeholder, Ive beat him in court a few times and he has lost thousands of pounds in service charges he cant collect , he would of saved all this money if he had accepted my offer of correcting his errors but he arrogantly said no.

[Pete Ads]

Hi again everybody, so i finally got the original demands back from Simarc and they are still issuing the admin charge obligations notice invalidly/illegally. It is either sent in 5 point or 6 point font, it's hard to tell which. It's easy to prove it's not 10 point though. And given they sent it to me in pdf form, I have the pdf from their account as proof that it hasnt been altered by me

 

AndyDD - you mentioned before that you'd successfully lobbied and beaten simarc for an invalid obligation notice, do you have the case reference anywhere? Since they referenced the case where they won an LVT, I'd like in my reply to point to a similar case. basically i've got to the "please use the 96 gbp previously paid under duress as a credit on my account because you have not complied with the statuatory instruments required at

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/1258/pdfs/uksi_20071258_en.pdf" but clearly with a few more words.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Pete Ads

[Pete Ads]

Looking again at the rent demand (attached), it looks like it also doesn't meet the schedule requirements ref here

http://www.shularich.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/S166-To-go-with-Ground-Rent-demands.pdf

 

Can I also justifiably argue the ground rent demand was invalid and hence no admin fee owing?

[andydd]

Nothing attached to your post.

 

But yes if GR demand invalidor not sent, (I havn't received anything from my FH for last two years), then the GR is not payable and neither would be any associated extra fees.

 

Note it is sometimes worth paying GR even if not demanded as this means the FH is recongnised the lease as continuing and means he cant use any S146/Forfeiture action.

[Pete Ads]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]52177[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]52178[/ATTACH]

Nothing attached to your post.

 

rectified. Looks like they got burned somewhere else as the new GR demands do look like they are compliant. nuts.

[andydd]

Its hard to cock up ground rent demands, the only real mistake you can do is send it to early.

 

But its the admin - summary of rights part that is incorrect, copying and pasting your attachment into MS Word and it shows that the font size is 6, it is not 10 !, a minor point but this goes you the right to withold payment of the £96.

 

My advice is the same as to little miss welsh, this right maybe short lived as they could correct it by re-sending, (in my case though, I had invalid service charge demands and when my freeholder started legal action I forced the issue by applying for a summary judgement at court (saying that as it stood, the demands were invalid, nothing was owing and the case should be struck out), they offered to withdraw their claim and paid my costs , I believe now that they cant chase the amounts again as this would be re-litigation and an abuse of process.)

[Pete Ads]

Thanks for the help. I've told Simarc i refuse to pay it because the Admin Fee is not accordant with the legal requirements. Until such a time as it is corrected, I am withholding payment. (at which point i'll get a bunch of leaseholders charged a similarly unreasonable fee to file for a joint LVT on the reasonableness of the charges given it equates to sending a preformatted email.

 

Their response was quite humourous, they said "in order for us to investigate, please be very specific about why you believe we are not compliant with the law". I wrote back and said "the onus is on you, the managing agent, to comply with the law and all statutes and not on me to tell you where you are deficient in this regard. If you wish to hire my services...200 quid... I know it's not the first time that's been said to them, even that amount in regard to GR demands so I wonder how much atten

 

I know they wont take me up on it, but it feels good to slap those incompetent SOBs

 

I believe now that they cant chase the amounts again as this would be re-litigation and an abuse of process.)

 

I thought double jeopardy had been repealed where material or compelling new evidence came to light - usually applied only for serious cases like murder though in the case of Stephen Lawrence for example, than somewhat trivial tribunal cases for a few quid