We prepared a budget and had it agreed with the directors of the new Right to Manage company for the block. The budget highlights were as follows:
The service charge estimate for the current year is 28% lower that the previous year.
A contribution of £7,000 will be made into the reserve fund. A well managed block has a suitable reserve fund. We encouraged the leaseholders to agree to build up the reserve fund. It is these small things that make your investment stand out from the others. It is one of the top ten questions asked by flat buyer’s solicitors.
An £700 saving made on the fire alarm maintenance contract
£1300 was saved on buildings insurance.
£1300 savings was made on gardening and cleaning.
If there is money left over towards the end of the year then it will be used to invest in LED bulbs to try to reduce the annual electricity bill of £3600.

We helped the leaseholder canvas other leaseholders for support by providing them with the tangible benefits of carrying out Right to Manage. It made the Leaseholds comfortable with the idea once we highlighted that the Right to Manage process would be carried out by our Legal Services Director. Most leaseholders didn’t know it was possible to carry out the Right to Manage.

The leaseholders were asked to get in touch with their telephone numbers/email addresses so that we could organise a meeting to discuss next steps.

We immediately applied to Companies house to register the company and prepared Notices to Participate to serve on all those leaseholders who did not attend the meeting, inviting them to also become members. We are obliged by law to wait 14 days before the Notice of Claim can be served on the Landlord.

The Notice of Claim was sent to the Landlord and other parties to the lease. The Landlord did make contact with us immediately after receiving the notice. We explained the process to them and highlighted the Landlord Duties with regards the claim.

The Landlord is given a deadline date to respond which is at least one month after the notice is served. We didn’t here anything else from them until the final day they had to respond. If they hadn’t responded then we would have automatically been awarded the Right to Manage. We received a letter from the Landlords Solicitor on the final day saying they didn’t dispute the claim.

A notice of intention was sent out in line with Section 20 legislation in 2017 with works planned for 2018. Lessees were made aware at an early stage that funds would be required for the project. The surveyors employed to managing the works, Blakeney Leigh, had experience of similar building repairs. They produced a suitable specification for the repairs and invited 3 specialist contractors to tender for the contract. As part of the section 20 process lessees were also invited to nominate any contractors.