LETTERS:
Charge to leaseholders has nothing to do with the cost of the service we get
Published: 8 January, 2016
• ISLINGTON Council residential leaseholders are generally unaware that their service charge has not been calculated or apportioned according to the terms of their leases.
Council leases state that the service charge shall be apportioned by area, but the council has never properly measured the area of all its flats, so instead it decided to use what it calls bedroom weighting.
The High Court has decided that bedroom weighting is wrong, and that area should be used. The council is now claiming this High Court decision does not apply in most cases. I disagree.
The council claims to have now measured Thornhill Houses; in my case laughably the council had to make my flat 10 per cent larger than it really is to get the service charge remotely correct. For other flats the council would have to reduce flat sizes by some 50 per cent to get the figure correct.
The result is that the service charge usually has little resemblance to what it should be.
It is another typical council shambles. Thus, over the years some leaseholders will have paid thousands of pounds more than they should have, while others have paid less.
The reality is that the service charge is just a pre-decided figure that the council wishes to recover from leaseholders, and has nothing to do with what the service provided actually costs.
For more information please email fair@thtara.org.
PETER CAIN
Thornhill Houses
Offord Road, N1