major works southwark...taking the council to leasehold valuation tribunal

[leaseholder]

Hello,

as some leaseholder of property in southwark will know major works are under way on many properties like my own.

I own the lease on half a victorian house and the nominated contractor has just finished the work.

I have inspected the work with them that includes refurbishment of 9 windows, repointing to brickwork and chimneys, work to roof.

The work in my opinion is of such low quality to be worthless.

I have experience in the building profession so am shocked at the standard and nature of the failure to provide work of any quality.

The contractor admits there is no excuse for the quality of work...they have offered to redo the work but I have no faith in them.

I know that only nominated contractors will get the agreement from the council to do work and that they are under no requirement to chose any company other that the one they have chosen.

Also the work is finished and while the contractor agrees the work carried out is unacceptable they are offering to do it again.

The issues at the centre of my concerns are that I will be charged an enormous amount for the works which are worthless.

Now I haven't received yet what the costs will be (estimate or otherwise).

my question is:

1. has anyone been in the same situation and taken the council to the "leasehold valuation tribunal" and had any luck at all opting out of the major works (especially once they have started)?

2. Have you taken the council to the "leasehold valuation tribunal" and had success choosing your own contractor to do the work again?

Thanks,

Dave.

[dimples]

We had our lease hold property the same as you a three bed Victorian half house window frames painted and outside wall some time back and within a couple of months it had all peeled off due to the wrong type of paint ! The cost too was a couple of thousand after we bartered it down as it didn't need doing in the first place !

Now we are freezing out as they want to do all that you've described and quoted our portion over ?8000 . My husband too also works in the building trade and is really unhappy about this

[Charles Notice]

Perhaps you could get the national press and TV to expose the quality of work that you are being charged for these works.

You could invite the Chief Executive along with the head of Homeownership to take part as she likes appearing on TV documentaries to comment

Do not forget at the end of the day Southwark has the option to take you to court and require your mortgage lender to settle when they get judgement.

[PeckhamRose]

Write to Leaseholders Association of Southwark (I assume you are members) and also write or phone the Leaseholders CAB. Google it for Southwark; you'll find it.

[EDNEWBIE100]

Hi Dave

We are due to complete on a flat purchase over the coming weeks and I have just found out that the house in which my new flat is based (a victorian house comprising of two flats) is subject to the council's major works programme. I am really concerned about the likely fees associated with the works. The house/flat is in a good state of repair but I have heard the council does as much work as its contractor sees fit.

Could you give me a rough idea of how much the council ended up charging you for works? Do you have any idea what your neighbours in the area have been charged? I am trying to gauge an idea of the likely costs involved.

Many thanks

[poppy-bees]

Dave - I am also a leaseholder and am also extremely unhappy about the quality of the major works... our windows were painted closed and we are being charged a small fortune for very low quality work.

I wonder if a few of us should get together and try and fight for the bills to be lowered / compensation paid where appropriate. I gave up complaining at the time of the work (several years ago) as I was banging my head against a wall trying to get anywhere with the council, and was advised to take this up properly once the final bill had been issued - we got the final bill in January so i am looking at all the paperwork again

[PeckhamNicola]

When I lived in LB of Barnet I was allowed a deed of variation which made me responsible for some aspects of maintenance my flat - is anything similar available in Southwark? Afraid my memory is hazy on what came over to me and what didn't.

Mind you, it didn't stop them from trying to charge me ?500 for a one ninth share of double glazing four windows in the communal area (utterly pointlessly as they were always left open). They then repeatedly insisted that there was nothing fishy about 4 windows costing a total of ?4,500. Sorry, it was a long time ago but I'm not completely over it yet... Sadly my subsequent experience of a non-council freeholder was not a whole lot better. There's no room for logic or common sense in these people's lives.

Rant over.

[richard tudor]

One point to remember with Southwark is they will write to your Mortgage lender for payment should you refuse to accept their costings.

You will inform your lender not to pay, they will then either take you to court to get judgement or instruct you to go to the LVA or whatever it is now called for their judgement. A long drawn out process involving cost.

They have no costs only you as we fund them through Council Tax.

There was a thread on here sometime ago from "errol", an ex Southwark leaseholder officer which showed just how Southwark works, May be worth reading

[fredbear]

I started a thread sometime ago as we were fed up about our last major works it took 6years to get a final bill.The estimate was over ?8000 we got it down to ?1800 so they owed us money in the end.We have just had completed another round of major works estimate ?3800 a lot of the work is the same as last time and a lot is work that might or might not have been done.I have taken photographs before and after so i can hopefully reduce this.A large part of the work is scaffolding and as they could not get the scaffolding through the house the are now adding an extra cost because they had to go over the roof.See general ed issues for post.