Monday, July 20th, 2015 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
In an article from Keeble Hawson it was reported that, a recent case in the Upper Tribunal of the Lands Chamber has been found in favour of a residential tenant who challenged her water charges. The estate water supply was measured by meter which could not be read remotely. The landlord therefore charged individual water charges from a central meter and recovered a proportion from each tenant through the service charge. The tenant argued this was wrong based on the high service charges raised.
Read the full article here
Saturday, June 27th, 2015 in Commercial, Landlord, News, Residential, Service Charge
In the case of Arnold v Britton & Ors [2015] UKSC 36, Gary Milner-Moore and Joanne Keillor of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP comment on the Supreme Court’s conclusion that, in interpreting a service charge provision in a number of long leases, arguments based on commercial common sense should not be used to undervalue the importance of the actual words used, and that the correct interpretation was one which applied the natural meaning of the term.
Read the full article here
Monday, May 18th, 2015 in Landlord, News, Residential, Service Charge
Brian Church for 24dash.com notes that social housing is changing. Instead of focusing exclusively on social housing tenants, many social landlords are branching out by developing flats and letting them subject to usual service charges. In line with this we are seeing a growing trend for social landlords to also bring in an element of service charge for their more traditional social tenants.
Read more here
Monday, May 18th, 2015 in Commercial, Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
Websters senior partner David Goddard says that ‘when we started specialising in service charge audits they were frequently undertaken as part of the property owner’s general annual audit. This was not a satisfactory situation because specialist knowledge is needed for accurate service charge accounting assessment.
• Landlords and tenants have transparent financial relationships
• Tenants trust that the service charge is correct and fair at no added cost to the landlord
• A reduction in investigations by tenants into service charges, saving time and money for landlords
• Specialist advice on current techniques for the internal accounts team
• Almost all general practice accountants and auditors unfortunately do not have the specialist knowledge and experience to fully understand your needs
Since that time many large landlords in the UK have moved to providing independent audited accounts for their service charges thus removing one cause of landlord : tenant conflict’
Monday, April 20th, 2015 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
Although you may regularly deal with some aspects of The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, it may still be helpful to look through this summary from RPC, which sets out the basic principles in relation to the recovery of residential service charges. Property managers whose duties include the collection of service charges need to be particularly mindful of the provisions of this Act.
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Saturday, April 11th, 2015 in Commercial, Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
Helen Pickard of Nabarrows reports that The new Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations 2014 have now been amended, which is good news for landlords, as the New Regulations give them more time to register.
Under the New Regulations, landlords of multi-let buildings that have a central plant for heating and/or cooling systems must register with the National Measurement Office by 31 December 2015 (and not 30 April 2015 as previously required)
Read the full article here
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Tuesday, March 10th, 2015 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
The government has published amendments to the Deregulation Bill that would stop the small minority of rogue landlords evicting tenants simply for asking for essential repairs to be made. The move is also designed to strike the right balance, so the provisions only target bad landlords and cannot be used by tenants to frustrate legitimate evictions.
Read the full article here
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015 in Commercial, Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
DAC Beachcroft has reported that a landlord of a multi-let building or estate will often have leases which fall for renewal at different times. Old service charge provisions will require review and possibly updating to account for new services being provided in the modern age.
Landlords will generally wish to avoid the administrative hassle involved in managing two or more different service charge régimes. One way of doing so, recommended by the service charge code, is to include two service charge provisions within new leases.
Read the full article here
Friday, February 27th, 2015 in Commercial, Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
The Land Registry has issued a reminder that property fraud can happen in many ways. Fraudsters may attempt to acquire ownership of a property either by using a forged document to transfer it into their own name, or by impersonating the registered owner. Once they have raised money by mortgaging the property without the owner’s knowledge, they disappear without making repayments leaving the owner to deal with the consequences. If your property is registered, making sure we can contact you will provide you with better protection against fraudsters.
More information is available here
Monday, January 26th, 2015 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
Wendy Miller of Berwin Leighton Paisner reports that in two recent cases decided that the 1985 Landlord and Tenant Act makes void any provision in a lease of a dwelling that the apportionment of service charge will be determined “in a particular manner” such as by the landlord’s surveyor. In addition, where an intermediate lease allows the freeholder’s surveyor to determine the apportionment of service charge, that provision will also be void, even though the freeholder has no direct contractual relationship with the residential end user tenants.
Read the full article here
