Sarah In my experience and from working for several social landlords, both in the public and private sectors, all service charges are passed onto leaseholders “proportionally”. However, different providers have different views on what proportional means. Some calculate strictly on the number of units, dividing total costs between the number of units irrespective of there being a mix of 1, 2, 3 or more bedrooms, others base the charges on the size of the property. These costs range from replacing day to day items such as vandalised light fittings, relamping column and estate lighting, providing locks to intake cupboard, repairing paving, removing graffiti etc. Cyclical works, generally major works such as painting, making good to concrete, window replacements, major wiring, roof repairs etc are generally on 5 to 7 year cycles, all chargeable. Replacement of obsolete common equipment such as door entry systems, lifts etc are again cyclical and are again chargeable. In my experience, any works which are outside of the ‘usual’ day to day or cyclical programmes, housing staff have to add to a never ending wish list and go cap in hand for morsels from budgets grabbed from elsewhere or be prepared to submit bids to tenant compact schemes, which is an altogether different story in itself. By way of example. The Audit Commission recently carried out an inspection of the ALMO I work for. Their findings were crucial to the local authority, the ALMO, its tenants and its leaseholders. A good report from the Audit Commission meant the release of millions of pounds over coming years to be spent on not only the decent homes standard but also improvements in many other areas. One of the many issues that the Audit Commission picked up on was block and estate signage across the borough and the need to show a corporate identity for the authority and the ALMO on its blocks and estates. Examples highlighted by the Audit Commission of block and estate signage ranged from the 1920’s and possibly earlier right up to the present day. Some estates consist of 1 block, some consist of many blocks. Some estates have one road access point, some have multiple access points. Some estates need an estate map, some don’t. However, where we could improve existing signage we did so with self adhesive stickers attached to existing signage showing the corporate image of the ALMO. For the signage that we were not able to upgrade we had to price up the works, a block sign costs £225.00 each, an estate map costs a tenner less than £1,000.00 each. I have one estate with 7 blocks and 5 road access points and that’s just one estate of 100 properties among the just under 2,000 I am responsible for. I have other blocks with 6 flats in each block, each block needs a block sign at £225.00. Because local authorities cannot make full use of the receipts from the sale of RTB properties and because local authorities have been starved of funds for years and years, there hadn’t been an estate signage budget in living memory. For an authority to have to find something like £200,000 to provide up to date signage from a starting point of having no budget is a considerable drain on funding. I don’t agree over the point about a leaseholder paying 25% of the replacement costs for a 40year old roof if the leaseholder took out a lease 10 years ago. My justification being that if local authorities had been funded fairly throughout the last 40 years, which they most certainly have not been and were certainly nowhere near adequately funded through Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as PM, then such major replacements wouldn’t be needed now. Local authorities, even the worse ones, would have been able to maintain their stock far better had they had access to funds to do so. The lease of 10 years ago would have reflected the state of the building at that point in time and after a valuation had been carried out. As the lessee accepted the terms of the lease based upon that valuation, with the ridiculously high discount they were given, the lessee in my opinion has an obligation now to fully contribute towards the cost of the roof replacement. Tenants contribute to all these costs through their rent, something that many leaseholders of today have conveniently forgotten since their time as tenants, before taking on the lease.
Gareth Evans ● 7332d