Recently national government ran a consultation on leaseholder service charges (linked to the Leasehold reform act and bill that is currently in progress).
PRERA has been working with Lambeth Homeowners Association and here is a copy of their response to the consultation.
From Anthony Winn Chair of Lambeth Homeowners Association:
We sent this direct to the officials dealing with the survey, rather than responded using the questionnaire, as that failed to deal with the fundamental issues.
I think the three main points to push, as ones that everyone can understand, are:
- The burden of proof of unreasonableness of charges should be reversed, so that the landlord has to prove that his charges are reasonable.
- If a landlord cannot, or will not produce proper evidence to justify a bill, that bill should not be payable.
- Imposing NDAs where out of court settlement of disputes are reached should not be allowed.
- If we can get that into law, most of our other issues would be solved.