We are a management agent which oversees the maintenance of common areas that are not the responsibility of Inverclyde Council.
Consequently we are entitled to charge you a proportion of the costs involved in maintaining these areas. Your Title Deeds place an obligation on you as owner to pay these costs.
Charges are based on the maintenance incurred in looking after the areas for which we are all responsible. As you live within that area you are legally obliged to pay your share of all costs involved.
You don’t have to. If this is the case please contact us with details of when you bought the house, who you bought it from and their forwarding address and we will amend your invoice.
You are not paying for tenants to get their repairs carried out. This invoice only relates to work carried out in common external areas and is not specific to any one house.
We charge all owners a flat rate £10 annual administration charge. This charge covers staff time involved in organising contracts, monitoring works and answering queries.
It also covers a share of our office costs, overheads and lost interest. We pay for repairs up front and only charge you at the end of the year after all the accounts have been paid by us. The administration work included in the charge is liable for VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent.
The invoice is due for payment now.
If you don’t pay we will take appropriate action to recoup any unpaid invoices. We will also invoke a charge for this work. We were forced to take a small number of owner occupiers to court last year for non payment of charges and we were awarded Decree and expenses by the Court in each case.
Notices of Potential Liability were also served on a number of owners for non payment of charges. A Notice of Potential Liability registers a “Burden” on the potential sale of the property. Both legal methods are successful and it is in your best interest therefore to ensure that you pay your bill in full by the due date.
You will receive an invoice in April/May of each year.
This invoice relates to services that are not covered by the Council Tax you pay to Inverclyde Council. In particular, Inverclyde Council do not maintain the common ground or raised walkway areas shown on the plans.
The total cost of the works divided by a total of 960 houses within the area (tenants and owners). Larkfield is responsible for the costs involved for tenants and recovers this through the rent charge each week.
So if the total cost of the works was £1000, and there were 50 tenants and 150 owners within the area, the costs per house would be £5. The Association’s share would be £5 × 50 tenants = £250, and each owner would be charged £5 plus the administration charge.
This is something you should take up with your solicitor.
