Leaseholders and Shared Owners

A service charge is an amount payable to the landlord for the cost of services for looking after the areas of the building or the estate we are responsible for.

Each year you will receive an estimated cost for the services we provide. The charging period for this will be set out in your lease.

Services that you may pay towards if included in your lease are:

• Management costs
• Repairs
• Service contracts
• Utilities
• Grounds Maintenance
• Cleaning
• Buildings Insurance
• Cyclical Maintenance and Major works
• Sinking Fund

The service charge amount will vary each year. Once we have received all costs at the end of the year, we will issue you an actual cost, usually in September, and either refund the amount owed or apply the difference to your service charge account.

You will not have to pay the whole cost of the services provided. Your lease will set out the proportion of what we can charge which is usually split between yourselves and other Leaseholders in either the block or estate you live in.

We do our best to make sure all service charges are correct, but if you do spot something that you think is incorrect or doesn’t look right, then please contact the Leasehold team and we can investigate your concerns and make any adjustments if necessary.

If you don’t feel we have resolved the issue correctly then the Leasehold Advisory Service offers free advice to Leasehold and shared owners. You can either visit their website http://www.lease-advice.org/ or call them on 020 7832 2500.

As a Landlord we can charge for our administrative costs and we want to be as open as possible about these, so we have published them below so we can be as transparent as possible.

• Resale/Landlord Enquiry Pack (LPE1): £200.00
• LPE1 Additional enquiries: £60.00
• Resale/Landlord Enquiry Pack (LPE2): £60.00
• Notice of Transfer: £70.00
• Notice of Charge or Notice of Mortgage: £70.00 (each)
• Application for alterations/Pet Permission: £42.00
• Extensive Application for Alterations: £60.00 (plus £65.00 per hour for surveyors visit, if required)
• Retrospective Consent: £60.00
• Removal of Land Charge Entries: £60.00
• Deed of Variation: £50.00 and then £450.00 legal costs
• Notice to Sublet (SO only): £42.00
• Deed of Covenant: £60.00
• License to Assign: £60.00
• Certificate of Consent/Compliance: £60.00
• Re-mortgage Lender Letter: £78.00
• Copy of Lease:
  • If no copy of lease on swordfish/files = £35.00
  • If there is a copy = £15.00
  • Tnt’s can also download copy from landreg themselves
• Lease Extension: Registration Fee: £42.00

As a landlord we have a responsibility, which is set out in your lease, to maintain the structure, exterior, and, interior of the block in which you live. The cost of this work is charged back to you if so permitted by your lease. In addition, some leases allow leaseholders to be charged for improvements.

The law requires a landlord to consult leaseholders when the proposed major works cost more than £250 for any leaseholder in the block. This is often called a ‘section 20 consultation’.

The ‘section 20 consultation’ is made up of 3 stages and they are designed to make sure that we offer best value and quality for the works that are needed.

The three stages are set out below:

Stage 1: notice of intention

This is where we tell you about the work we intend to do and the reason for it. We will also invite you to nominate a contractor if you wish to do so and we will invite them to tender for the work.

We also give you 30 days + 5days to allow for postage to write in with any observations about the proposed works.

Stage 2: notice of estimates

This stage we give you details of at least two estimates which we have obtained from the contractors we approached including any that have been suggested to us by yourselves in the first stage.

Again we will give you 30 days + 5 days to write in with any further observations.

Stage 3: notice of who won the contract

Finally we have to tell you who won the contract within 21 days of its award – unless a leaseholder nominated the contractor or the contract is for the lowest tender.

The notice should explain why we chose that contractor and give a summary of the leaseholders’ comments about the estimates, and give you a reasonable place to inspect them.

Once we have completed the ‘section 20 consultation’ we will either apply the cost to your estimated service charges or your actual service charges depending on when the consultation or work has been complete.

If the consultation is not carried out correctly, we cannot charge an individual leaseholder more than £250 each for the works unless we have obtained a dispensation from consultation from the First Tier Tribunal(FTT)

As the Freeholder we are responsible for arranging buildings insurance and will charge you a fee for the cost of this through your service charge. You are responsible for putting your own contents insurance in place.

Your buildings insurance covers the structure of your home that you are responsible for under the terms of your lease, including:

• walls
• ceilings
• roofs

This insurance protects these parts of your home against damage caused by:

• fire
• flooding
• criminal damage
• subsidence

Your buildings insurance does not cover:

• your day to day home repairs and maintenance
• deterioration
• wear and tear

If you make a claim you will be asked to pay an excess charge.

If you would like to make a claim or discuss either of the following contact routes:

1. Phone: during office hours 9am-5pm Monday to Friday telephoned through dedicated claim line: 0161 2749077
2. Email via claims@protectorinsurance.co.uk
3. Online through their website https://www.protectorinsurance.co.uk

For all calls made out of hours, your call will be redirect to the emergency provider, Sedgwick’s.

Please find below the links for the Summary of Cover and the Marsh information sheet.

Abri Group Ltd Leaseholders Summary of Cover 2024

Key Information For Leaseholders

Service charges are payable to the landlord to reimburse them for the cost of services, repairs, maintenance and insurance. The amount of the service charge will vary each year, depending on the cost of providing the services or carrying out works, and we will only ever recover the exact amounts spent on the relevant services, plus a reasonable management fee.

The management fee is the fee recovered by Abri Homes to cover the administration costs associated with providing services. Costs generally include:

• The setting up and management of rent and service charge account payments
• Procuring estate and/or block works, making payments to contractors and keeping accounts
• The management and production of service charge accounts each year, including issuing and calculating charges
• Responding to customer enquiries and carrying out additional leasehold management such as dealing with breaches of the lease.

Your service charge contribution is calculated according to the terms of your lease agreement. Costs are divided (or ‘apportioned’) among properties in a block or development. Depending on your lease terms, the division can be either by the number of properties in the block/development, relative floor areas, number of bedrooms, or rateable value. Your lease agreement will contain the details.

We issue service charge estimates annually in April. The estimate is a breakdown of the anticipated overall cost of services over the next accounting period. Estimates are calculated based on costs in previous years while taking into account any upcoming one-off charges we are aware of.

Because it is an estimate, the balance of your account and the payments collected may need to be adjusted once actual service charges are calculated.

We issue service charge actuals in September. Unlike the estimates, which are a forecast of charges for the coming accounting period, actuals are a breakdown of the actual costs incurred over the previous accounting period.

In line with government requirements, we are legally required to carry out FRAs on a regular basis. Depending on the property, the fire safety expert will recommend an updated assessment every one or two years.

We are legally only able to issue service charge demands to current leaseholders and cannot pursue former leaseholders for outstanding balances. We strongly advise customers to ensure that the balance of the service charge account including any pending charges is cleared prior to completion. It is also advisable to agree on a retention to cover any potential post-completion charges incurred by the previous leaseholder.

If you have recently completed and received a service charge demand covering a period during which you were not a leaseholder, we would recommend you contact your solicitor to enquire if any funds were held on retention to cover post-completion costs.

It’s the consultation process we are legally required to follow before we carry out works or services, above a certain value, for which you will have to pay under the terms of your lease. Section 20s were introduced as part of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, with current legislation in place since 2003.

The process gives you an opportunity to share your views on our plans to carry out certain works on your building or estate.

In some cases, you will be able to suggest a contractor who you think could complete the work at a competitive price.

We will consult you in two situations:

• before we carry out one-off works that will cost more than £250 per household
• before we award contracts lasting more than 12 months that are likely to cost households at least £100 per year.

These might include repairs, redecoration or improvements to your building or estate, as well as contracts for grounds maintenance, lift servicing or communal cleaning.

If you aren’t consulted over qualifying works, the amount you can be charged is capped at £250 for one-off works and £100 for long-term contracts.

In some situations, we may not have to consult. If emergency work is needed without delay, for instance, we can apply to the first-tier tribunal (Property Chamber) to proceed without consulting first with leaseholders. In such cases, we would have to comply with any conditions the tribunal imposed.

You must get our written permission before you make alterations or improvements to your home, if these are not routine decoration and improvements.

Your lease will confirm if we can grant for certain alterations or improvements – please check your lease before contacting us as fees will apply when processing any requests we receive. Where your lease allows us to grant consent, we won’t unreasonably refuse to give you our permission.

If you live in a flat, please contact us before you fit a wooden or laminate floor, as there may be restrictions to make sure this doesn’t cause a noise problem for your neighbours.

If your lease allows subletting you must tell us if you sub-let your property because we will need to keep up-to-date information on how to contact you if any problems arise and to make sure your annual service charge invoice is sent to the correct address.

All the rights and responsibilities you have as leaseholder will apply to any person you sub-let to. If the person you sub-let to breaks any terms of your lease, then we can take action against you.