Be Excellent To Each Other

So, on Thursday last, I entered my small two bed ex council flat and read the mail. Bill, credit card, you have won... the usual. And then BILL! He came a knocking big stylee!

Basically the council are doing up the block, and the bill is £11,000. The majority of which is 6.2K plus fees(6, 9 and 3%) for double glazing. There are 4 windows in the flat. Granted one of them is door window, so lets be generous and say 4 windows and a door.
I have just been quoted 3K for the same work by an independent DG salesman.
There are a load of other issues about the bill which I won't bore you with, but I was just wondering if anyone knows anyway I can minimise this bill. Preferabley by about 11K

Can you not just say "No, I'm alright, ta"?

I'm fairly sure that even if they still hold the lease, they can't force you into improvements that you don't want - especially at 4x the going rate. I have no reference for this though, so it could all be bunkum.

Erm - you need to look at your lease. Very much. As the freeholder (presumably) they can call for contribution from the leaseholders for any necessary repairs/improvements to the property. I can look this shit up, but I'll need to know what your lease says.

Weirdly, proper leases are easier than ASTAs.

As always, get onto the CAB and ask them. I've got no clue, but I'm surprised that they can just drop a £11k bill on you.

Bit of a poo day all round isn't it?

Our lease says we are liable for 6.123% of all building works. So we kind of have to pay something. TBF we need new windows, and if the price had come in at 5K total, I wouldn't be too* fussed, it is just the fact the price seems to be a minimum of 2x the going rate.

I am going to contact my solicitor today, sadly I don't hoold out much hope for this getting sorted. Anyone know any good hitmen?

*still skint though.

11 grand for 4 windows and a door?

Tell them to get to fuck, that's well over the odds. Are they made of Ivory?

TBF that does include a few extra things, they are going to fit new guttering and sofits (?). And they are spending £1800 on weathershield paint, to paint the indoors hallway. Why the fuck does an indoor wall need weathershield paint??? Wankers!

Bobby, my sister is going through exactly the same thing with her flat in London. It's a big load of back-hander bollocks, all the residents in her block have set up an action group and it looks as though they will be able to force the council to let them use alternative contractors who meet the same standards and quote less than half the price.

Interesting. Where about does she live, it isn't Barnet council by any chance is it? Any info regarding this would be V useful.
Obviously if you don't want to give details about your sister to a complete stranger, I won't hold that against you!

It's Islington. I'll give her a ring in a bit and get some more info.

I saw an episode of the A-Team while I was on holiday where BA's Mum was being harrassed by some new tenants in the building so she called in her son and his "A-Team" to sort them out.

They set up a tenant's action group to try and get the new tenants out, but it turned out that there were other fishy goings-on, which in the end resulted in the A-Team crashing a high-flyer executive party with guns and a bomb.

Perhaps try that?

The same thing happened here, when they fitted security doors on the flats - the cost was quite high and some residents started a campaign to have the door on the back left as it was, so now we have an amazing super strong door on the front, but a cardboard flap on the back, which is just blinkin' stupid, and how those kids got into the flats and beat up my next door neighbour last year.

If the majority of the expensive work is cosmetic, though (such as the paint) then it might be worth getting together with some of the other residents and getting some quotes, because that really does seem like a lot.

Or do what Gazchap suggests

The A-Team, eh? Does anyone know where I can find them? I searched under A in the Los Angeles Underground phone book, but I think the are ex-directory.

We are getting a group together, the problem is some of the flats are private rent so the landlord is not contactable, and some are still council, and some are private lived-in.

We can, I believe, opt out of the windows section, but to do so costs us £1,000. Bastards.

@ markg: Thank you, that is most kind.

That sounds pretty dubious. How are they justifying that?
Have they given you details of the quotes and contractors? If you can show that the quotes are too high, you must be able to force a reconsideration somehow, surely.

Quotes? Contractors? Are you mad man?? Nothing of the sort, in fact the bill is rather humourous:


Do they think I am not going to notice it if they hide it in the middle?

Haha. Yeah, they slipped that in there, didn't they?

What a joke.

I'm also suspicious as to why the cost of the windows is a nice round 105k yet the cost for netting is £1,144.

Have they added an extra zero for laughs? How about contacting the local paper too...?

£6,221 for four windows? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you're still better off financially telling them to stuff it, paying the £1,000 exclusion "fee" and THEN getting your windows done separately.

Not only the local paper, but the opposition party in local council too. Election year next year, and they love a good corruption scandal.

We are. I got a quote for £3k last night, and that was the first quote I had, I am sure I could get it cheaper still.

Bobby, sorry to have got your hopes up. The last time I spoke to my sister about it was a few months ago. I just spoke to her now and it seems that since then they've made no progress and most have them have decided to just pay up. She knew about it when she bought the place though and had been saving up for it. She also mentioned this website:

http://www.lease-advice.org/

But said that this is a very common problem in her area and even residents who are lawyers have just given up and paid. It seems that what's happening is an age old contractors cartel scam, they each put in very high quotes and agree between themselves who gets to put in the slightly lower one for a given job.

Scummy scum scum! Doesn't surprise me. back handers and greasy palms all round!

Thanks for asking though. It could be worse though, I know of someone in Islington who got a 42k bill for council work on her block!

Perhaps share this information with the rest of your block so that you can fight it en masse?

Well, that is good to hear. I shall go and read your thread for an update.