Consultation

Consultation and providing information is an essential part of how we manage our home ownership services.

Government laws (Common Hold & Leasehold Reform Act 2002) gave social landlords a duty to consult leaseholders. Social landlords now have a duty to formally consult leaseholders about major improvements as well as some day-to-day repairs.

Landlords must also consult leaseholders about service contracts (such as concierge or grounds maintenance contracts) that are scheduled to run for more than 12 months. The two main types of contract we may have to consult you on are as follow.

A) Consultation for qualifying work that currently costs each leaseholder more than £250 (including VAT)

We will serve you a notice of intention that describes the major work and improvements we plan to carry out.

You then have 30 days to reply. We will consider your comments before we get any estimates.

We will get at least two estimates.

Once we have received estimates we send you a statement that explains the planned work, the costs and where you can inspect the estimates.

You then have another 30 days to inspect the estimates before we enter into a contract.

If we need to do the works in an emergency (such as repairing a damaged sewer), we can set aside our duty to consult you. A Leasehold Valuation Tribunal can confirm this if necessary, as long as we acted reasonably in the circumstances.

B) Consultation for qualifying long-term agreements where your share of the cost is likely to be currently more than £100 (including VAT)

Qualifying long-term agreements last for more than 12 months and could be for work or goods and services such as grounds maintenance and concierge contracts. Some repair and major-work partnerships contracts will fall into this category.

We have a duty to consult you where your share of the cost is likely to be more than £100 (including VAT) each year. The process for consultation is very similar to the one above.