Service Charges – Claiming Back from Bloor Homes

By Nige on March 10, 2023 at 6:28 am
Type: Post Category: Service Charges
Tags: Announcements | Bloor Homes

Residents have been receiving service charges from Chamonix and/or FirstPort for a number of years now, but do residents realise that they can claim these costs back from Bloor Homes?

We have summarised the Key Points for those who just want the headlines. For those that would like to read a little more, head to our In-Depth Analysis.

Key Points

• As the appointed Estate Manager, Chamonix and FirstPort have been submitting unjustified service charges to residents for the past 3 years or so.
• Due to the legal instruments in place, the Estate Manager has the balance of control. If they wanted to, as soon as payment is overdue, they have the right to apply onerous restrictions on residents’ properties.
• That means that residents need to pay any monies due to the Estate Manager in a timely manner. Residents need to ensure their accounts do not end up “in arrears”.
• However, that doesn’t mean they need to remain out of pocket! Residents have proven that they can reclaim these costs from Bloor Homes.
• The emails, letters and justification residents need to successfully reclaim these charges can be downloaded from this post.

In-Depth Analysis

Background

As we described in a recent post about what you need to know about service charges, residents have been receiving service charges since 2020/2021 from Chamonix and/or FirstPort.

You can read more about Bloor, FirstPort and the Management Company – Who are They?

The Legal Position

When you look into the legal position, it’s clear from the wording in the TP1, that the Estate Manager can only charge residents for work being undertaken by the Estate Manager in connection with the POS. Since we are yet to complete the handover process, the responsibility for the POS remains with Bloor Homes. Therefore, the Estate Manager can not perform any work on the POS.

Test Cases

Residents have already proven this in test cases with Bloor Homes. It may be the Estate Manager that is invoicing residents for unjustified service charges, but it is Bloor Homes that has created that situation and it is Bloor Homes that has ultimate control over the Management Company.

Steps Involved in Reclaiming these Charges from Bloor Homes

1. Download the emails, letters and justification. Remember that all of these documents need to be updated to replace the named resident’s details with your own details (e.g. your name, address etc).
2. Use Email 1 as the basis for sending a complaint to Bloor Homes. This needs to be sent alongside the Word document that articulates the justification for the complaint, so attach Doc 1 to the email. In order to resolve the complaint, you are stating that all service charges imposed on you need to be reimbursed.
3. Look out for a response from Bloor Homes. They are normally quite good about acknowledging complaints – you can expect to receive a response within a day or so. All they will say is that they acknowledge receipt of the complaint and they need some time to respond.
4. Bloor will be used to receiving these complaints by now, so they really should be able to deal with it in an efficient way. But there’s a chance they may respond indicating they will pass the complaint on to the Management Company or FirstPort. If that happens, you need to reply quickly and emphasize they MUST NOT do that – your complaint is explicitly with Bloor Homes. You can see the email exchanges with Bloor Homes before they acknowledged our complaint in Email 3, Email 4 and Email 5.
5. You may end up in some general exchange of emails where Bloor Homes keeps you up to date on the status of your complaint. You can see the email exchanges with Bloor Homes in Email 6 and Email 7.
6. Bloor Homes will finally agree to repaying the service charges that you paid within a week or so. You can see the emails we received from Bloor Homes in Email 8, Email 9 and Email 10.

Bloor Homes’ has a page on their website which outlines their 5 stage complaints process.

Emails, Letters and Justification

Below is a list of the emails, letters and justification that you need in support of your claim against Bloor Homes. Some of the exchanges of emails are not material, but have been included to show the responses residents may receive from Bloor Homes. Only logged in users can access the relevant documentation. You can log in here.

Links to documents will open in a new tab.

Good luck in claiming your service charges back from Bloor Homes.