Good afternoon,
I have received a Final Notice relating to the service charges payable on my flat. I will pay this. In fact, I have tried to do so today, by phone and on-line. I have not been able to by either method. Why? Because I would like to go down the Direct Debit route, and this is not offered on either of your automated services. So, I will take the time out of my working day on Monday to call your main line. Presumably I will be able to arrange the simple direct debit payments then. I hope.
At this stage, I would like to complain on a number of points:
1) The shortcomings of your automated services, outlined above.
2) The threat of CCJs against me. I pay my council tax. I pay my mortgage. I pay all of my bills. It's hard. And I work hard to do it. I made an error in this instance, thinking that, like all my other bills, there was a DD already set up for this small bill. I was obviously wrong, for which I apologise. But threatening CCJs? That's over-kill surely.
3) What is this service charge for? I'd like to think it goes towards the upkeep of the block of flats in which I am a leaseholder. However, living here, I realise there IS NO upkeep of this block of flats.
The stairwells are disgusting, partly because the contractors YOU hired to install the security system never cleared up after themselves when they had finished. There is still a layer of pink dust throughtout the block from where they drilled in to the brickwork. Also because YOUR tenants do not look after them.
Why would they? I spoke to one of our tenants recently, and he told me he "can't be bothered going to work because he's better off staying in smoking weed all day and claiming benefits." Now that is tragic, isn't it? And what does the council do about folk in that situation? Nothing.
My entire block, including my actual flat, smells of marijuana. I don't touch drugs myself, so I'd quite like to live somewhere without that particular scent. In fact, as I pay a mortgage to live here, which the anti-social-smokers downstairs don't, I find the whole thing really quite offensive. I certainly would struggle to sell the flat, or even rent it out, when it smells and looks like a drug-den. Could the council do anything about this? I suppose you can't, or you would, wouldn't you?
4) Why do I get charged for everything? I get letters from you telling me I have to pay for the new security system. I get letters from you telling me that my (recently burglarized and therefore open for all to see) shed contains flammable materials which you will charge me to remove. Presumably your tenants are not eligible to pay for these things? It seems to me that they flount the rules to which I am obliged to adhere. For example, the lobby downstairs is currently full of scrap wood and other waste items. It resembles a city dump. Are these not flammable items? Is the lobby downstairs (the only access route to the whole block) not a bit more of a risk than the exterior sheds? It'd only take one of the tokers downstairs to flick his spliff-end in the wrong direction and we're all goners. Surely some of my 300 quid service charge could be allocated to this menace? In fact, give me a tenner back, I'll go and knock on their doors and tell them myself.
5) All in all this service charge just seems to be you milking what money you can out of good, honest working folk. I can understand that, it's what governments do. But do you really have to be so brazen as to itemize it as such on the invoice? "Sundry Income". Now that is offensive.
Yours, expecting a full detailed justification for the above detailed atrocities and, preferably, some form of compensation,
Dan Donovan
