Maintenance fees

sunflower27

Hope someone can offer some advice.

I live in the South East of Ireland in a 2-bed duplex. It is one of some 50 apartments/duplexes ranging from 1 to 3 bed.

My maintenance fees per year are 2,300euro.

I have friends in Dublin in new complexes paying much less. How is it rated? I cannot see how I need to pay that much. Yes, there is green areas - but they are not huge. We get our windows washed twice a year (back windows, not front) and I dont pay for rubbish. I know it includes maintenance of lifts/lights etc, but is 2,300euro in this climate a ridiculous amount? I am paying almost 200e per month on top of my mortgage!

Thanks in advance.

Snakeblood

sunflower27 wrote: »

Hope someone can offer some advice.

I live in the South East of Ireland in a 2-bed duplex. It is one of some 50 apartments/duplexes ranging from 1 to 3 bed.

My maintenance fees per year are 2,300euro.

I have friends in Dublin in new complexes paying much less. How is it rated? I cannot see how I need to pay that much. Yes, there is green areas - but they are not huge. We get our windows washed twice a year (back windows, not front) and I dont pay for rubbish. I know it includes maintenance of lifts/lights etc, but is 2,300euro in this climate a ridiculous amount? I am paying almost 200e per month on top of my mortgage!

Thanks in advance.

I think you should get onto the management board and find out what exactly your money is paying for. If it's composed of residents, join, and try to reduce the costs. Mine, just outside the M50, are about 500 or so. 2300 sounds ridiculous.

sunflower27

Thanks snakeblood. It's keeping me awake at night as I'm being made redundant and that 200 is going to financially break me.

I've asked my friend's dad (who was my solicitor) to look into my documentation to see if there is anything in there regarding the fees.

It really is crazy.... even by Dublin standards that's a bloody rip-off!

Who is the management board?

Ste.phen

It depends on whether the company that built the complex has handed it over properly yet. If they have, the board of directors of the Management Company are other apartment owners, who likely subcontract the actual day to day running of the complex to a management agent.

If they haven't handed over control, that's a bit tricker. There's a sticky thread in this forum which is very long but has a lot of useful information about these issues

Paulw

You should receive annual accounts from your management company, which will show the expenditure, and then your allocation of costs.

You will be paying a fixed percentage of the total budget.

As a shareholder (member) of the management company, you have a right to see the accounts each year.

sunflower27

Ste.phen wrote: »

It depends on whether the company that built the complex has handed it over properly yet. If they have, the board of directors of the Management Company are other apartment owners, who likely subcontract the actual day to day running of the complex to a management agent.

If they haven't handed over control, that's a bit tricker. There's a sticky thread in this forum which is very long but has a lot of useful information about these issues

It's through Douglas Newman Good Commercial Propery. I really am pretty clueless on all this. When I was looking to buy the place I was told that fees would be about 1100-1300 depending on the size of the place I was buying. I didnt get that in writing and when I rang the auctioneers I bought the place off and told them the fees they said what I was told at the time of buying was an 'estimate' but that 2,300K was very very high. Hmmmm. Maybe they are just buck-passing.

I will look for the other thread.

Mary Hairy

Some complexes are more expensive because of features like lifts and security. You need to get a set of accounts and see where the money is being spent.

athtrasna

sunflower27 wrote: »

It's through Douglas Newman Good Commercial Propery. I really am pretty clueless on all this. When I was looking to buy the place I was told that fees would be about 1100-1300 depending on the size of the place I was buying. I didnt get that in writing and when I rang the auctioneers I bought the place off and told them the fees they said what I was told at the time of buying was an 'estimate' but that 2,300K was very very high. Hmmmm. Maybe they are just buck-passing.

I will look for the other thread.

DNG CP may be managing agents but they are not the management company, that comprises all the owners. Start with cro.ie and search for your development name...most MCs names will be something along the lines of "Beech Copse Management Company" where Beech Copse is the name of your development. You may have to pay a small fee (a couple of euro) but you should be able to get the info about the directors of your development and the last filed accounts.

mathepac

OP with your mortgage documentation etc your solicitor will have received a copy of

• your lease (you own the interior of you apartment - you lease everything else)
• a copy of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of your Management Company.

The name of the Management Company (not the managing agent) is given in these documents.

As a member of the Management Company you must legally receive :

• a copy of the annual budget
• timely notification of the date, time and place of your Management Company's AGM

There is no point in comparing maintenance fees for your property with fees for properties elsewhere in the country because you don't currently know the basis for calculating your own fees and therefore cannot reconcile any differences.

As a member of the Management Company you have responsibilities as well as rights. If you don't understand these maybe you need to have them explained to you in detail by the solicitor who acted for you during the purchase.

Do access the CRO site as above and find out who the directors of your Management Company are and make contact with them.

Del2005

sunflower27 wrote: »

Hope someone can offer some advice.

I live in the South East of Ireland in a 2-bed duplex. It is one of some 50 apartments/duplexes ranging from 1 to 3 bed.

My maintenance fees per year are 2,300euro.

I have friends in Dublin in new complexes paying much less. How is it rated? I cannot see how I need to pay that much. Yes, there is green areas - but they are not huge. We get our windows washed twice a year (back windows, not front) and I dont pay for rubbish. I know it includes maintenance of lifts/lights etc, but is 2,300euro in this climate a ridiculous amount? I am paying almost 200e per month on top of my mortgage!

Thanks in advance.

I know of people in Dublin paying more and less!! The complexes location doesn't mater.

If your complex has lifts, communal corridors, security gates and underground parking then that sounds about the same people are paying in Dublin.

Loads of people where told their management fee would only be ~€800 and it was for the 1st year, then they got hit with the real costs.

As the others have said you need to review your Management Company accounts. If the development has been handed over by the developer then if you get a majority shareholder vote at your AGM, or EGM if you get enough votes, you can change Management Agent to try and get a it cheaper. To do this you'll need to contact all the owners in the complex and get them to agree

BC

You can't say its a rip off unless you know what the money is/isn't going on. The fees are not picked out of thin air. They are to pay the bills of the complex, so find out what those bills are. You should be able to get a copy of the accounts for 2009 if you didn't attend the AGM.

Also, are some of the units still owned by the builder? If so its possible that residents are having to cover the charges for those apartments.

tHE vAGGABOND

I know for example, that my own block has fee's higher than they should be [still not TOOO bad] as the insurance is mental, as we had a few gigantic claims a few years ago.

Really feck all we can do about it, but pay, it should go down this year or next

Likewise there could well be a reason your fee's are so high

The_Conductor

As the_vaggabond suggests- if there has ever been an insurance claim, the block and 3rd party insurance could be stratospheric. We have a similar sized complex in Lucan village, and our insurance (alone!!!) this year is almost EUR1050. This is after 7 claims in the past 3 years for numerous reasons. If we increased the excess to 10k- it would bring the insurance down to around EUR900 per unit- but potentially bankrupt the management company if we had another period of cold weather and tanks and pipes froze etc.....

Our insurance this year is up almost 40% without a recent claim (the excuse being given is last winter's bad weather).

EUR2300 does seem a lot- but its far from unusual, and indeed I'm well aware of developments where this is significantly higher.