Forum for residents of St Georges Park and Long Leys Road Lincoln

[Captain K]

Hi all

We own and live in a freehold house on Fulmen Close (Off Manrico) and have received property management fees dating back to 2009 (When we moved in). There was a problem with our Solicitor neglecting to infrom said company when we moved hence the back dated charges!

The reason for my post is to put the feelers out! Do other people on the Mercer Drive side of LLR development pay these fees? We are a freehold 4 bedroomed house and the few other home owners on nearby streets that we have actually spoken to have never received such a bill! The management company have told me that every house on this development pay a percentage of the costs of maintaining the communal areas that their company is responsible for the upkeep of! This also includes electricity for lighting (commal areas), insurances, repaires etc

There are a number of flats on Fulmen Close and I am aware they pay an maintenace fee through this company for their communal gardens and corridors but I assume that is to be expected having lived in a similar property in the past.

Any comments would be appreciated and those of you who live on MANRICO, MERCER, BENBOW etc in freehold properties - DO YOU PAY?

[cl12]

Hi

I live in the flats in Fulmen Close and we pay a service charge. They also neglected to send us our bill for over two years (despite us asking for it) and was a bit shocked to see a £2000 bill land in my doorstep. Wasn't planning on it being that much!

Do you have shared off road parking? This might be what you are being charged for. My neighbours who live in houses but share the parking pay a service charge for the carpark.

[Captain K]

Hi and thanks for your post.

Yeah, we have access to our garage, which is behind the flats and next to the paking bays allocated to the flats. The bill is for around £240 a year and when its broke down, covers bank charges, insurance, electric, repairs and general maintainance to the communal areas! I wouldn't genrally have a issue with paying it but we know various people on this estate who have similar freehold properties (houses) with the same style of access and parking. But they pay nothing!

I've contacted the company today and I'm awaiting the property manager for this development to get in touch! I can sympathise with the sudden 2k bill dropping on your door step. They added a £58 charge to our bill because they had addressed it to the previous owner and when I questioned that issue they pointed the blame at myself for not opening her mail! Needless to say I won't be paying the £58!

[cl12]

They are absolutely useless!! I imagine that those neighbours who haven't received a bill will do at some point....whenever O&M decide to send the bill.

I knew that my neighbours had their bill over a year before I did. I spent that time asking for them to send me a bill. When they finally did they blamed me for not paying it earlier saying I had received a bill, even though every time I had spoken to them in the past they said i wasn't on their system!

What concerns me is that surely they work out the cost and split it among the number of people in the property/street. If they only realised I was on their system a year later then my neighbours bills should have been reduced once I began was contributing to the share of the costs, but it seems not! Just make sure you aren't paying for everyone elses share!

[deb]

wow I didn't realise we had so many properties with service charges on the estate. I wonder if the shared driveways on Manrico pay. I wonder simply becuase they are a different builder to Fulmen. Also, I was looking at Oasis on Carholme Road and although the houses are freehold there will be a private management company in charge of the roads which will mean, quite probably that the water mains etc won't be adopted either. The woman told me that was now the norm but the charges wouldn't be known until exchange of contract! I don't know if that's true (being the norm) but I asked to be taken off the list of peole interested because when you're talking roads and utilities, the costs could get quite high. This has happened on the new small development off Burton Road that overlooks what will be the cemetery.
Captain K, did your solicitor not tell you you would be subject to management fees when you bought the house. surely this is remiss of them, wouldn't searches or something show that up. The charges are extortionate. I pay less than that on insurance for a whole house and as you say, yours is divided between many. Years back when it was new I looked at Burton Waters, the fees were £15 per week so that's probably nearly 1K now.