Major works with ever rising costs

We were recently sent letters with quotes from companies for fire safety upgrading in a tower block where the quotes ranged from £310,000 to £640,000
where studio flats had to contribute £4500 and larger flats a lot more.
We did our own research with established companies and found that the works could be carried out for around £80,000 which is obviously substantially less. We had a collective meeting and accordingly have sent a letter to the management company stating that none of us would make a payment unless the company we recommended was allowed to tender and possibly used to carry out the works. We are now waiting to hear as this was only done yesterday.
With regards to going to the tribunal, I had been to the LVT (equivalent to First Tier Tribunal these days) years ago where we were charged around £2000 for painting a wall. I won the case and it was agreed that the cost should have been around £300.
To my shock, I was billed for around £2700 as, I had to pay the freeholders costs for the tribunal case where, the solicitor who did not even attend the hearing, was charging £230 per hour where he charged this rate for his time for even photocopying as, he was a one man band and did not have a secretary.
On appealing, I once again lost and ended up paying something like £4700, at which time I gave up as the next stage was to go to the Lands Tribunal and I could not take the risk of losing any more. That was a lot of money in those days.
I later found out that in my appeal, I should have pointed out that it was an unfair term that, I had to pay the Freeholder's costs when the Freeholder lost the case, and things may have then been very different.

Try the leaseholders' charity http://www.leaseholdknowledge.com

The absolute rule of leasehold litigation is to pay first, fight second, owing to the unfair cost regime under leases. There are many examples of disastrous litigation on the LKP website where people have not followed this. There are successes with section 20, too. But it is major litigation and needs a strong group to pool resources and pay for professionals. No one is going to pay much attention to a lay person's opinion on a major work to a high rise block, for eg.

First, regarding the other side's legal fees - if your lease says you are liable for such you can ask to have this struck off at step 1 at the LVT, I hear.

Second, Liz - what does your lease actually say? You should dig it out and read the clauses. Notably is this a repair only lease? If it reads "to maintain in good and proper condition the roof, drive, drainpipes" whatever, there is no provision for improvements. As such good repairs can only be made unless it is no longer economical to do so. To prove that is a burden falling on the freeholder (landlord) / managing agent. And if they wrongly replace old with new, you can claim the financial cost to you as leaseholder is zero (or max £250) - but I believe zero, and the landlord (lessor) bears the full cost of these works if challenged later.

Check for clauses where it indicates the landlord (lessor) must make a contribution. For example, one lease I had did make this clear, only for the driveway. Interesting when the landlord gets a % of the bill.... Their proxies access the estate after all.

And note that since the Garside case the financial impact on leaseholders needs to be taken into account. So repairs should be phased. It is improper to do everything at once if you resist it. For example, internal decorations can wait a couple of years after external works. If there are two roofs, do one at a time etc.

Reply to the comment left by Jon D at 11/07/2020 - 16:52
Thanks for the comments - the issues we have is that we are implementing 'major works' repairs not renewals - but I will look into the renewal bit - no works have been done on the building in around 15/20 years so it is in poor shape even though the landlords lease states that it should be redecorated and works carried out every 7 years. This apart, what we have now is that a the process has been carried out correctly with the S20 then tenders but the costs are rising on a fixed cost job - what I need to find out is how to challenge this - they inspected and tendered and now they can't do it for that money - I suspect that the lowest tender could never do it for the cost they propose and rely on uplifts during the job - when maybe the higher bidders could have carried out the works as described

Sounds to me like the S20 process is not being observed - it should take place again and to the book. This time also inform the landlord/agent that work must be phased and check closely if the result - or elements of the work - can be described as an 'improvement'.

Your max liability as leaseholder is £250 for major works, if S20 process has not been followed and nil if a repair is actually an improvement.