Wiltshire Council Housing Leaseholders Handbook

You must pay a service charge for the services you receive, for repair and maintenance of the building and for the landlord‟s insurance and management costs. Your lease will give details of what service charges you must pay and when. We work out service charges using the financial year from 1 April to 31 March.

Service charges become due on 1 April each year, but are billed in July / August when our accounts have been finalised and audited. They are billed in arrears and based on the actual costs incurred by the council in managing and maintaining its leasehold properties.

What your service charge might pay for

Leasehold Service Charges (LSCs) include the following, which are covered under the "management fee‟ heading:

• Dedicated contact through Leasehold & Sales Team
• Information through the "Housing Matters‟ newsletter
• Dealing with enquiries from leaseholders
• Carrying out statutory consultation under The Commonhold & Leasehold Reform Act 2002
• Home visits to lessees on request
• Updating leaseholders' records
• Advising lessees as to their rights and responsibilities under the terms of the lease
• Calculating and presenting LSCs
• Issuing leasehold annual statements
• Providing information for auditors
• Liaising with finance officers to collate service charges
• Negotiating with lessees on payment options
• Enforcing lease conditions
• Collating of costs for individual services
• Advising Wiltshire Council of budgets
• Auditing accounts
• Invoicing lessees
• Collecting service charges
• Crediting accounts
• Collecting service charge arrears
• Processing repairs orders

Other charges

• Caretaking or cleaning - if a caretaking or cleaning service is provided to your block you will be required to pay a share of the cost through your service charge.
• Maintaining the grounds - we employ contractors to maintain the shared gardens and grounds. Repairing and maintaining the block - your service charge will include items for day-to-day repairs needed to maintain the structure, outside and shared areas of the block.
• Electricity - you also contribute to shared electricity for your block which includes supplies for staircases and corridor lighting/heating, costs of running the lifts and any shared appliances within your block.
• Major works - for information about larger items of repair and maintenance when individual leaseholders are charged more than £250, please refer to section 5 below.

How costs are worked out

If we sold all the flats in a building, we would recover 100% of the costs of managing and maintaining the shared parts of the building. If you are the only person buying in the building, you pay your share of the costs with the other charges paid through tenants' rents. We work out the amount you should pay each year using the proportion stated in your lease.

Items which may be billed will include:

• Ground rent: The lease sets ground rent at £10 per annum and this cannot be changed.
• Insurance: Insurance charges are calculated by dividing the whole cost of the insurance policy by the total number of leasehold flats.
• Management costs: The total cost to the council of management items is divided by the number of leasehold properties; examples are given above
• Responsive repairs / routine maintenance: If your property is within a block of four your lease should state that you are responsible for one quarter of the costs of maintaining the block. If part of a larger estate your lease may also state that you are responsible for a proportion of maintenance of the communal gardens, car parks etc. This will be in proportion to the number of properties on the estate.

For example, if the cost of maintaining the entire block is £1,000, you will be responsible for a quarter of this amount, or £250. If grounds maintenance costs £600 with 20 properties on the estate, a further £30 will be required towards the costs.

We break all of these costs down on your certificate of service charge for the previous financial year.

Where and how do I pay my service charge?

You will find the ways to pay listed on the back of the invoice.

What if I have a question about my service charge certificate?

If you have any questions about your service charges contact the leasehold and sales team by email HSGMail@wiltshire.gov.uk (opens new window).

You are entitled to inspect the accounts of your annual statement and supporting documents relating to that statement within six months. To do this, you will need to make an appointment with the leasehold and sales team.

If you dispute the service charge, you are entitled to appeal to the leasehold and sales team which sent out the service certificate. If you are still unhappy, you can apply to the leasehold valuation tribunal to decide on the matter.

Problems paying your service charges

You may find it difficult to pay your service charge. If this happens, you should contact us as soon as possible. We can then tackle the problem quickly and find a practical solution. There are a number of ways of dealing with financial hardship, such as:

• agreeing payment terms with the council
•  finding another way to pay
•  claiming income support
•  delaying your payments, with council agreement
•  getting advice or counselling on debts. You will find telephone numbers for organisations who can offer you debt advice in the How to contact us section at the front of this handbook.

What will happen if I don't pay?

If you don‟t pay your service charges on time, we will contact you to remind you that payment is due. If you cannot pay, please contact us so that we can find the best way for you to make the payment.

If we do not hear from you, we will pass your account to our solicitors for recovery and contact the county court for a judgement order. If we have to take legal action against you, you may also have legal costs and interest added to the debt.

You must meet us to sort out any disputes you have, and let us know your current financial position. If the county court has made a judgement order we will have a range of options to recover the amount you owe including:

•  getting your mortgage lender to pay your service charges; they will add this payment to what you already owe
•  asking your employer to make a regular deduction from your salary until the amount you owe has been cleared
•  employing a bailiff or county-court sheriff to seize goods to the value of your debt
•  freezing your bank or building society accounts.

We may also register a legal charge against any property you own to protect the money we are owed. If necessary, we will apply to the court for "forfeiture‟. Under forfeiture you will not only lose your home, but you will still owe us the money.

We do not want to take legal action, especially as it would mean that you will have to pay legal costs and this will add to your financial problems. However, it is most important that you work with us to sort out the problem and let us know your current position. If you do not, we will take legal action to recover the service charges due.