Q: Our Fire Risk Assessment suggested we should consider a lightning conductor. Of course, we have never been struck by lightning, but there is always a first time! And of course, any risk assessor would put in anything possible, even if unlikely, to protect themselves. We are six stories high and next to the sea, […]
Q: Could you advise us on the legal requirements for an annual AGM for a limited residents’ company such as ours. We have been holding formal AGM meetings for some years but with declining attendance a less formal format would be preferable, if permitted. A: FPRA Committee Member Bob Slee replies: The lack of interest […]
Q: We have a problem with tenants in one property dumping rubbish outside the maisonette (on our land). The landlord is not being as cooperative as we would like. Legally are we entitled to bill the tenants for clearing up the rubbish or should the bill go to the landlord who is the leaseholder? Some […]
Q: I am aware that we cannot ban subletting unless all leaseholders agreed to it – and they won’t! However would we be within our rights to state that from a certain date we will only allow it with permission with the prime criterion being that you have to have lived on the estate for […]
Q: We are holding a General Meeting to decide on a number of motions, which our treasurer has been working on for over two years. As a proportion of our members are frail and elderly, I guess that many will not fully understand the issues and what we are voting for. As Secretary, I have […]
Q: 1. We are a company which is owned equally by all the owners of the flats in our block. When we purchased the freehold we agreed to suspend the payment of ground rents, as we would really be paying ourselves. Now a third party has suggested that, as our leases state there is a […]
Q: We are a fledgling residents’ association, with membership of 12 out of 15 leaseholders in a small block of flats. We were motivated to form the RA in response to a range of shared poor experiences in relation to our management company. We therefore have a number of queries about which we would appreciate […]
Q: Could you please let me know if the RA subscription fee to FPRA is a legitimate expense that can be charged to the service charge account managed by the managing agents? If this is so, does it imply that all leaseholders in our block are members of our association? If it does not, are […]
Q: When we enfranchised seven years ago, 12 of our 30 flats were owner-occupied. The figure is now four, and set to reduce. We face a real problem of finding volunteer directors. We remember reading something about this in the FPRA literature a couple of years ago, and wonder whether any of FPRA’s members have […]
Q: You kindly provided us with some guidance a few years ago whilst we were going through the process of ‘collectively enfrachising’ to purchase the freehold and grant ourselves new longer leases. We have been self managing the block of eight flats for a few years now and are slowly building up a sinking fund […]
