Orion's Belt
Registered User
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- 20
You should not have taken the agents word on this. First off they probably had no authority to speak on behalf of the management company and secondly they had a vested interest in telling you what you wanted to hear in order to sell the property to you.Last October, I bought my first home, a one-bedroomed apartment. Before doing so, I rang the management agent to check the management fee, and to query whether it would rise. The agent said I should anticipate a 5% increase for 2008, payable quarterly. I expected a bill from the management agents in December. No bill arrived.
You might want to ask your solicitor if you should be liable for accrued liabilities of the management company but I presume that by buying and signing the management company lease agreement you are.Last Friday evening, the management agency hand-delivered emergency notices full of exclamation marks and block capitals to our mailboxes informing us that our power would be cut off this Friday if we did not pay €10,000 to the ESB on the 11th of January. Our fees have been increased by over 50%, payable immediately. There is apparently a large outstanding ESB bill from 2005 that has never been settled.
The developer who built the apartments is also the management company director, along with his accountant. About a third of the apartments pay no management fees, according to the management company’s annual report which sets outs how much each apartment pays. I know that at least one of these apartments belongs to the developer, as I viewed it. I do not know whether he owns the rest of them, or why they are exempt from fees. The unpaid ESB bill dates back to 2005 when the apartments were being built. It strikes me as possible that this was the electricity used to build the apartments, not light the communal areas etc.
As you say this was very foolish on your part. You may have missed your chance to discuss any proposed changes to the budget/management fees. Note also that even if a residents association exists it is unlikely to have the official clout of a management company which is an incorporated entity with specific responsibilities.There was an AGM in November, which I foolishly did not attend. No minutes were subsequently sent out. If there’s a residents association, I don’t about it.
If you are a full member of the management company and have the right to attend general meetings, speak and vote then this may not be the case. However you and many other property owners/residents who are management company members/shareholders would need to exercise your rights in terms of controlling how the company is run, budgets set, etc. If two thirds of the properties are not held by the developer then that should mean that "ordinary" residents have the controlling share of the vote so should have a lot of control. However I have no idea of the specific make up of your company or the rules that apply. You might want to ask your solicitor for advice on this.Thanks Clubman. I've arranged to talk to a solicitor on Thursday, and will in the meantime make contact with an owner occupier. The flaw, as I see it, is that the developer controls the management company, and can thus bill us as he sees fit.
So no fees have been paid on the unsold units in my development since they went on sale in 2006.
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There have been a lot of phonecalls to the management agent on foot of this abrupt rise, the agent tells me. He says I'm not the only one to be querying the huge ESB bill (over €40,000 owed on fifty odd apartments, and there's another €20,000 owed to non-specified parties) but the agent assures me they've done their sums and the electricity bill checks out. I will of course ring ESB myself.
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