Hi everyone, my name is ?gimmies?, inspired by the illusive greed that seems to lurk around Southwark council?s attitude towards leaseholders. I?m not much into forums but this case is special, and it urged me to finally look into taking some sort of action. I sympathize with everyone?s input here in these forums and particularly this thread. I am a resident and leaseholder at the 4 squares situated along Southwark Park Road and my goodness do I feel ripped off!!? I bought a (pretty cozy on the inside now..) one bed flat in 2006. A couple of years past and I was endorsed with approx. ?20k worth of major security works which were completed in 2009. But this didn?t stop the youngsters from burning the cctv cameras in the lifts, vandalizing everything inside the lifts, burning and removing all the health and safety signs on the walls and often urinating in the communal stairs or in the lifts... And all this, after the security works were complete. Where I live, is a medium to large size block with close to 200 flats along 6 floors, I find it insane that the contractors convinced the council that they had to install 42 very tough looking metal gates (7 in each floor), with pretty expensive looking magnetic lock systems (with fob) in each door, in addition to 24 large glass doors outside each lift access, plus 4 main entrance double glazing doors. And all I ever asked for was to have some decent doors at each main entrance to the building.. It?s hard to believe that a building with an average of 200 flats needed to have fitted a total of 70 doors for ?security reasons??Who on earth would agree with such works to go ahead, surely not the ones paying for it. It?s almost a ratio of 1 door per 2 flats! And after the security works, I can now only access 2 of the 4 main doors which makes me feel that I or my neighbors are not trustworthy to access ?the other side? of the block (so much for integration..). So in short my ?20k share went into buying a few now broken cctv cameras, half of a ?security? door, a new main door into my flat and a couple of fobs for the jail looking gates. I fear sounding a little unfair towards Southwark council with this note, but that is genuinely where I feel that all my money has gone! Naively like some of us here, I also did not pay a couple of smaller bills amounting to about ?3k but eventually Southwark Council took the plunge and nicked my money through my mortgage lender. To top it all up I ?acquired? 2 CCJ?s. The first in 2007 and another in 2009. This has completely burnt all my bridges in regards to having any half decent credit rating for the past few years and at least until 2015.. A total of 8 years of bad credit thanks to a couple of late payments on major works related bills, they sure run on cold blood. This is not to mention how wonderful it was, when I realized that our new main entrances to the building would be positioned next to the rather large door to the dump container which does not only smells funky more often than not, it?s most times piled with broken furniture and bin bags lurking by the container dump doors, it doesn?t make it appealing as a main entrance to a building, far from it. It makes me cringe when I think of those old bills that I am still struggling to pay for... But that?s not all I?m afraid. All the above is not the reason why I?m actually writing today, there is more.. I?m here to find out if anyone has received letters for recent major external works at the 4 squares and if so how much is the total bill? Mine is just under ?28k now.. fresh from the farm?. I?m curious to find out if the leaseholders are in fact all charged at the same rate. And what may be the best approach to dispute this incredibly enormous bill together. I wish the press could look into helping to generate more attention into these matters. It?s almost as if they are not allowed to mention these more serious issues that leaseholders encounter on a consistent and persistence basis. No press can say that there is a lack of interest in this subject and if it seems like it, it?s because the press it self is not doing anything about it. What dis-heartens me is that I genuinely enjoy where I live but I can?t see these major works ever stop. We haven?t even got to the double glazing windows yet.. what?s that gonna be, another 25k??? :o0 Blessings
