Freehold co. blocking sale after service charge debacle and CCJ?

Reply to the comment left by Kate Mellor at 11/07/2018 - 11:44
Not far wrong there Kate neither regards the little Hitler's on Shared Freehold Co.
Sorry but I missed a few points earlier, I don't have a BTL, all paid off. Nor does my insurance cover me for any litigation against the freeholder.
I did use a very reputable Leasehold law firm in your own town actually Kate, name no names. They are/were posted on LEASE'a website, started off great guns.
But now it does seem they did nt read my lease too well, nor play too coy when mentioning the CCJ and sale.

Cheers,
BB

I concur with most of what Kate Mellor has said/suggested subject to my comments below.
When embarking on any kind of litigation the cost issue must be fully understood. (subject to small claims usually no cost).
In your case your contract (lease) will usually take precedence as regards costs.
You do not want to end up with a pyrrhic victory (cost recovery clause in lease). The landlord can instruct Counsel at say a cost of £400 per hr and a Solicitor at say £275 per hr.
Forfeiture proceedings may follow at which point your lender will be involved at yet more cost. Your lender will likely "dump" you to preserve their interest.

Several outcomes are possible at County Court.
1. Case dismissed with costs, non compliance (CPR) etc.
2.Case transferred to FTT (Section 176A of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002). (As more than merely a breach of covenant, failure to pay SC)
3. Case dismissed as unreasonable for Claimant to have retained docs etc since claim arose (stale case).
You could end up in the court system with a matter like this for easily 2 years.
I know the above is not what you want to hear but it is reality of the legal system and courts which should be a last resort.
You have received some helpful comments which i believe are very close to what the solution will come down to.

Rules governing the award of costs are set in rule 13 of The Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 S.I. 2013 No. 1169.
under section 29(4) of the Tribunal Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 Act (wasted costs) and the costs incurred in applying for such costs.
Tribunal may make an order in respect of costs only:
if a person has acted unreasonably in bringing, defending or conducting proceedings.
Willow Court Management Company (1985) Limited v Mrs Ratna Alexander, "…a decision that the conduct of a party has been unreasonable does not involve an exercise of discretion but rather the application of an objective standard of conduct to the facts of the case.If there is no reasonable explanation for the conduct complained of, the behaviour will properly be adjudged to be unreasonable, and the threshold for the making of an order will have been crossed…"

As regards default judgement you need to understand that a party in the wrong can obtain judgement in their favour. As no acknowledgement or defence was filed a court would have no further interest in the matter. A form is simply completed (about 3 mins) job done.
At the point of claim compliance with protocols is usually confirmed by tick box completion.
A court will not "waste time" on matters that are not going to trial as they are now deemed to be purely Admin/rubber stamping.
Whatever you decide make sure you understand the cost issues.

All the best.

As per my very first comment. As you have a potential sale then the pragmatic solution is just pay the £3000 to enable your sale to proceed. OK, it might have cost you about £1500 more than it should have done. Put this down to the cost of learning the lesson of always keeping fully up to speed with any leasehold property. As others have mentioned, leasehold properties can often have problems. I would guess that your next property might be freehold. It's OK having principles and being morally and perhaps legally right but if going down this route ends up costing you even more money just to prove your point then is it really worth all the hassle?

Brian, you may find a way to avoid paying the service charge by a technicality, but I would ask you to consider this: - who do you think is responsible for any mistake, and who will suffer financially if you don't pay?

The responsible person is probably the management company. If there was a fire at their offices, this could well have been the cause. Or it could have been incompetence. Perhaps it was such incompetencies that got the previous companies fired. You will probably never find out.

Who will suffer financially if you don't pay? Certainly not the management company, past or present. It will be recovered through raising the service charge for all leaseholders - none of whom were responsible for the mistake.

You mention your inexperience, but I find it hard to understand how you could have believed that the block would be managed with no cost to yourself.

You could argue that you should not have to pay any late payment penalties, or costs involved in the CCJ, but I cannot see any legitimate reason not to pay back service charges, other than finding an excuse not to pay.

Thank you to all three of you for the last comments or replues to my post. I ll try answer all in one response.
Yes sure I agree with the fact any costs in challenging this will be counter productive, especially given that (or IMO) keaehold kaw is discriminatory, favouring the freeholder not the keaeholder. Where is the fairness there?
If I pay it, then the CCJ will be classed as satisfied, so then I am unable to challenge it at FTT. Its too late or theoretically to have it set aside.
We are talking about paying £3,000 over the previous offer which was withdrawn of approx £1500. But the truth is the figure calculated by my solicitor on the basis of when I should have first been liable for recovery is Zero, Nil, 0 sum owed.
I gave no mortgage in the property its paid for, as too my others. All of which as stated I am selling to take the cask.out if the UK. Due in part to issues like this.
Yes of course there can be a reasonable argue as John Frith wrote, yes there must have been someone, somewhere that paid for the block's maintenance. But the correct laws and compliance was not met in issuing demands for 8 years.
Finally the first RMA was dismissed at the time of my purchase, the transfer of the fiat was never done by them and they did not register the transfer on file/data base. The later RMA had the fire, but the entry was not completed.
Ultimately all the records and any subsequent ones regarding the property, ie. SC demands should have been recorded, stored or inspected by the Freeholder, for backup . As they were still being produced and sending demands to the previous owner.
Incompetence by all except myself, I have all the documents going back to 2005.
My only failings were bring abroad, sick in hospital after a very serious accident and allowing the RMA Freeholder to mis inform and mislead me for several months, thus preventing myself from entering any defence, or requesting to have the CCJ set aside in due time.
They did not provide me with the Court papers for nearly 6 months.
Oh and by the way John, since when has referencing the compliance (or lack of) to Govt laws & regulations been an "EXCUSE" ?

Result! Settled! But why?
For all those who might have been reading this and posting your comments, I have now been successful in resolving this impasse and obtaining a full and final settlement. Sale going through.
But like most things in this world now, it makes very little sense to me;-
Freeholder and RMA offered £1448 via my solicitor last month as Full and Final settlement. A few days later withdrew it and upped the ante with a new offer for £3,000.
What followed or for myself was a stressful few weeks, wasted time and unnecessary correspondence trying to get their initial offer reinstated. They remained adamant, refusing to budge./p>
I made another offer yesterday of £2,000 in full and final, this was to include the second half yearly SC fees due July £480. They accepted it within an hour!?!? Hoorah.
Cant make out what all the fuss was about, as the difference is pennies. Or moral high ground for the Victors ?!?
Thank you to everyone for the advice, especially Trevor White,

Great news glad you got it sorted without paying legal costs.
Really pleased for you.

Good news. These things are just so stressful. Glad you could come to an agreement and you can move forward with your life.

Reply to the comment left by Kate Mellor at 18/07/2018 - 15:44Thanks Kate, yeah big relief.
Finally they've provided me with the service charge invoices and statements with breakdown, dating back to when they first took over.
As you're aware I was in arrears for a large sum, in 2014 via their solicitors all 3 parties came to an agreement, by which I made a lump sum payment then each year installments to bring down the sum in "arrears".
However I now see each half year, so January and July I was sent TWO Credit Control letters within 21 days of each other, plus Admin fees of £82.00. So 4 times a year !!
This is surely unreasonable, as it smacks of penalty fees? Despite there being an agreement in place for the payment of arrears.
Thoughts please?

I don’t really follow that. If you have a firm agreement in place and you stick to it to the letter there shouldn’t be any surprises unless your agreement is purely for your arrears and more current payments due are late. You might want to check they are sending EVERYTHING to the correct correspondence address or email. The department who sends out regular invoices might have your old address and the arrears department your current one (sounds silly, but it does happen).
Just keep ringing them and asking for an explanation.