Updating post from Reddit.
I guess the question is in the title š
For context: I own an apartment in a UK city and the business in charge of managing it is abysmal.
They donāt send ground rent or service charge bills on time, then when you eventually receive one, itās a āfinal notice of arrearsā from their solicitor which means lots of back and forth about ālateā payments that were never originally billed.
They have an online portal for news about the building and payment requests. None of it is updated.
Itās close to impossible to get in touch with their credit control āteamā which I believe is one person who is likely overwhelmed with emails from other landlords in the building.
Has anyone dealt with anything like this before? Is there an ombudsman that sets and maintains standards for these kinds of businesses?
Thanks for your help here!
I only know from a tenant point of view but I would imagine it is similar, every estate agent and property business management company is required to be apart of a government-approved redress scheme, such as The Property Ombudsman (TPO) or the Property Redress Scheme (PRS). You can either search them in one of the websites or check the companies website to see if they have the logo of what scheme they are apart of.
However generally before you go through this system you first go through the property managers complaint system. For me (I donāt know if itās the same for landlords) I have to start the complaint system and if nothing has changed in eight weeks I can then report the estate agent, but what Iāve found as soon as I mention Iām reporting them to the redress scheme things get done. If the property management company isnāt registered with a redress scheme, you can report them to the Trading Standards team.
More info on the schemes mentioned above: https://www.lease-advice.org/article/property-management-redress-schemes-what-leaseholders-need-to-know/
Thank you, Iāll check this out
Thanks for this - really helpful
I didnāt know this existed before your message - thanks!
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No, but thatās just been added to my āavoidā list - thanks!
Yes if block management is handed to someone else then usually they should be signed up to a Redress Scheme,
For your information, ground rent demands have to be issued in a prescribed form as per Section 166 Leasehold reform act 2002. If they are not then they are not legally valid and you could technically ignore..