LIVING AT HELENA COURT, HIGHLANDS GARDENS

 

Photo: Tom Gilling

Maintenance and service charges

A large, Victorian building with spacious gardens requires a good deal of care. The outside windows have to be painted regularly, the brickwork, roof and chimneys need attention, dry and wet rot have to be kept at bay, gardening has to be done, walls repaired, adequate insurance taken out, drains repaired and cleaned, and so on.

The costs for all this were a main reason why Helena Court was sold to a commercial freeholder in 1976. But the new owner didn't do much more than minimum maintenance. Decline in those years threatened both the quality of life at Helena Court and the value of individual flats. When the Residents Association bought the freehold in 1990 it began a programme of gradual restoration and committed itself to a reasonable level of maintenance.

"Maintenance" includes routine items like cleaning and gardening and repairs in general as well as the improvements necessary to restore the property and bring it up to date with modern conditions and reasonable quality of life expectations.

Every leaseholder pays service charges for maintenance and property management to the Residents Association as landlord. These cover both running costs and major works whose cost must be spread over time. Provision for major works builds up gradually in a notional "sinking fund". This avoids leaseholders being confronted with huge bills out of the blue. The level of individual service charges differs from flat to flat. The managing agent collects the service charges and carries out the maintenance works. The managing agent in turn reports to the Association's directors and the AGM.

Multi-year maintenance plans of up to five years' duration reflect the building's maintenance cycle, whose biggest items are external maintenance and decoration. These works are phased across the front, side and rear elevations plus sections of the roof and chimneys; no five-year period will, or should, be free of them. The second biggest regular item is decoration of the common ways inside Helena Court, together with replacement of carpets or flooring when necessary. Workplans are reviewed by the board across the year; they include irregular as well as lesser works that are also to be implemented.

Following the change of managing agent in 2004 a series of surveys were sought on items from drains to electrical wiring to fire safety. These have given deeper insight into problems and their urgency, so facilitating longer-term planning. An example is given below.

See improvements for more information on major works/surveys under way or in the pipeline.

Since 2004, the new managing agent and the Association's board of directors have applied strict cost discipline, securing large savings compared to previous works without sacrificing quality.

Nevertheless, anyone buying a flat at Helena Court must be aware that the sale price of a flat can be deceptive. It may seem low by market standards, but this can be because the service charges for maintenance are quite high. They consequently do affect the value of the property. Each leaseholder therefore needs to budget adequately for monthly service charges, alongside outgoings for Council tax, gas and electricity, etc.