Hi Mumtaz. This doesn’t directly answer you question, but just to confirm that this is a bill for work already done (so it’s for the aerial you are already using). Whether £250 represents value for money or not is a different matter!

Hello!

Our estate (Chamberlain House) has only just received our invoice. It was for an eye-watering £280. There’s no cost breakdown provided to explain why it’s this much, or how the figure was reached.

The invoices for our estate were printed on the 7th July and reached our estate on the 27th. I’ve raised this is a problem with Camden – I’m lucky. I’ve got a spare £300 in my bank account. Not everyone’s going to be that lucky to have the money to raise in over a week for a surprise.

Also, what is our TV aerial made out of? How can it possibly have cost that much? Earlier breakdowns didn’t lead us to expect that much of a whopping bill.

How can I pursue this further?

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your brilliant reply. The FAQ about complaining is really straightforward – especially the bit about not complaining about everything!

I’ve managed to find all the right paperwork. It appears to have cost about £18k to put in a digital aerial for our block, which, given the £280 fee means that our block has about 60 leaseholders (which would seem to be most of us).

What upsets me the second-most about this is the lack of opacity in the process. A final figure in February, then an invoice in July that took 20 days to post out (by which time I think we’d all have forgotten it). The invoice should arrive in a timely manner with a costs breakdown and an easy-to-understand explanation of how wiring up the block could get to that figure.

What upsets me the most is the following simple fact: I’m being charged £280 for a TV aerial.

When you get to that point you do go “oh, that can’t be right, can it?”
Best,
James

Paul, will you be paying the ariel invoice?

Sorry Mr. Didn’t mean to put you on the spot, just seeing what people’s stance is on it.

Hi Caz,

Unfortunately that’s not right… this link might help you: http://www.lease-advice.org/lvtissues/print_issues.asp?section=1

In particular: “When are service charge costs “incurred”?” (it says service charges but I believe it is also applicable to Major Works): “Section 20B Landlord and Tenant Act 1985: service charges must be demanded within 18 months from when the costs were incurred unless the landlord notifies you they will be demanded at a later date.”

If you haven’t received the Section 20B notice then you may not have to pay (I’m no lawyer!), but if you have been regularly receiving Section 20B notices – at least once every 18 months – about the bill for the major works on your TV aerial not having been finalised, then it looks like you will have to pay… unless anyone knows better of course! 🙂

More details about Section 20B notices here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/70/section/20B

Paul

Hi Caz,

I’m not going to recommend either way – you’ll have to make up your own mind 🙂

On a technical point, your service charge letters won’t have mentioned this, this counts as “major works” and would have been sent separately from any other paperwork.

You may well have a case, but I can’t guarantee it; in one instance I thought I hadn’t had a notice and didn’t realise that I had – I only discovered when looking through my paperwork files more closely. I’ve mentioned to Mike Edmunds who runs Leaseholder Services that the some letters are often a bit torturous to read but he says he is legally bound in most instances; the Leaseholders’ Forum are nudging him to find workarounds!

More specifically, you won’t have received things about “on going work” or a date for when you would be billed, just some form of very official notice saying that the work and/or finances for the work had not been completed yet, at least once every 18 months since the work started.

Perhaps phone up Leaseholder Services and discuss the situation with them, referencing Section 20B? There is also the complaints process should you encounter any difficulties. We’ve produced a guide about the complaints process here https://www.leaseholdersforum.org.uk/guides/ and there is plenty of stuff about Section 20B on the internet.