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During the past five years, while buy-to-let has been the new gold, and property programmes have bashed on about how it only takes some faux-wood laminate and a bevvy of brushed steel door handles to turn a dump into a desirable rental for ‘young professionals’, I’ve heard a different message coming back from flat owners who see their property as a home, not an investment.Complaints about absentee leaseholders, unruly subtenants and fractured communities have been a steady, although muffled, accompanimen

Question Is it common practice for boards of management companies of blocks of flats to publish their board minutes?Mr. H Andrews ANSWER Although there is no requirement for board minutes to be published, you should be aware of the law in this area. Section 248 of the Companies Act 2006 requires every company to record the minutes of the meetings of directors, and to keep these minutes for at least 10 years from the date of the meeting. The minutes are evidence of the proceedings of the meetings and failu

Question I am a member of the residents committee at Carlton House in Southsea. We are claiming the Right to Manage on the understanding that we will be able to arrange our buildings insurance. The relevant clause in our Lease states:‘To insure and keep insured...the building and the aggregate of two years rent thereof with the Commercial Union Insurance Company Limited or such other Company as the Lessor shall direct against the insured risks to the full re-instatement value thereof (including profession

Question Dear Sir,On obtaining the lease of my flat several years ago, I found myself the prime mover in acquiring the freehold of a block of 36 purpose-built flats, and this was successfully achieved. Each director of our freehold company has specific expertise in their area of responsibility and in consequence our maintenance charge, comparing ‘like with like’ is doubtless the lowest in the district whilst retaining efficient standards of service and cosmetic awareness.As a result of necessary complete

Question Dear Sir,We are a small business with eight-ten staff specialising in luxury development cleaning of communal areas, plus window and carpet cleaning. We have been in business since 1977 and just recently have been asked by one of our management companies for a preferred contractors’ fee. We did pay it last year. What right have they to ask for this money and can we refuse the £1,500+VAT?Name and Address supplied ANSWER David Hewett, of ARMA.org.uk, replies: ‘We assume when you say Management Comp

Question Dear Sir,My wife and I are retired and have two flats in London. We lived in a flat for 20 years then three years and two months ago I bought a second flat and after three months of works we moved into it and paid full council tax on this property, and half council tax on the empty, untenanted property we left behind. We could not sell the property for the sum we wanted over the past three years, and it has been on the market all that time.If we sell the first property I have been told I may have

It seems strange to say, but the credit crunch is not all bad news. If you are an astute flat owner, the economic climate presents more opportunities than problems. You’ve been thinking about extending your lease? In the overheated market of recent years, it seemed both unnecessary for marketability and prohibitive in cost. Neither applies now. With flat prices in freefall, a short lease is a deterrent to sale. You need all the edge you can to shift the flat and a newly extended lease will help. The cost

This is understandable as RMCs’ directors will at some point have to make difficult decisions regarding the behaviour of their neighbours. Enforcing covenants against neighbours can prove difficult and does not sit well with most people, who don’t want to be in conflict with those living in their block. This is where an agent can help. Agents are ‘expert’ on those matters which we hold ourselves out to provide. We take the necessary steps to enforce leases, collect fees and order works all in the name

As summer fades into a somewhat brief and distant memory and autumn arrives, it’s time to check gardens for Brown Tail Moth caterpillars (Euproctis chrysorrhoea). These caterpillars can be harmful both to humans and to trees. The caterpillars you are hunting for are about an inch long and have two red spots on their back. The moths themselves are white with a brown body and the female has a brown hairy tail. The caterpillars are covered in brown, barbed hairs, which, although not actually poisonous, can

On our staircase (of six flats), we had been extremely lucky with five careful full-time owner-occupiers and one flat rented out by a careful landlord. The construction of our 40-year-old block, like a number of blocks built at the same time in this area, has one serious deficiency: solid concrete floors at each level provide very little sound insulation. Our luck finally gave out late last year when a first-floor flat, that had just changed owners, was rented to three young men who wanted to live a party

To be effective, a residents’ association should be formally recognised.Who Can Become a Member of a Residents’ Association? In general terms to become a member of a residents’ association you must be contributing to a service charge, which is a sum in addition to the rent and payable directly or indirectly for services, repairs, maintenance, improvement or insurance and the whole or part of which varies according to the relevant cost. This should be contrasted with leaseholders who pay a fixed or non-

The powers came to light as a result of a High Court ruling in support of lender GMAC-RFC which moved to repossess after one borrower fell into arrears.At the hearing last October, Mr Justice Briggs reinforced a 1925 law whereby lenders were allowed to sell the homes of those two months in arrears.This has political implications in that it bypasses Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s recent demand that mortgage companies only seize homes as a last resort.Politicians and campaigners now have begun to lobby for a