Owning your own home

Hi all

Few people were asking me about my flat buying expeditions with a problem Freeholder. I'm living in an ex LA flat at the very cheapest end of the market (partly as a result of the problem Freeholder). This Freeholder - who I won't name - is notorious in industry, not quite as bad as the Tchenguiz brothers, but only one off. Here's a brief list of the stuff he's done:

• denied residents the right to use space that we pay to maintain
  
• used this space as a commercial business, and attempted to charge the running costs to residents
  
• in case of things like party wall agreements and right to light negotiations with neighbouring buildings, he has trousered their money to compensate for loss of amenity, and not actually made the requisite improvements to our block
  
• he also tries to on-charge the legal costs in pursuing this money to residents - though we receive no benefit from it!
  
• instead of charging specific residents for non-payment, he charges the debt to the whole block
  
• despite Tribunal and County Court decisions telling him not to do x, y, or z, he continues to do it, knowing that residents would need to take him to court to stop him, and residents are very scared of him putting 'punishment' policies in place
  
  

Obviously this is completely unethical, and some of it is actually legally criminal. What I've learned is that unless you're prepared to go to court and fight, you will never stop these people. But you also have to pick your battles, as there's no guarantee you'll win. Going to court is like getting into a physical fight with someone - even if you're bigger, stronger, faster, and in the right, there's no guarantee you'll win. And even if you do win, it'll probably cost you one way or another - you will be diminished by the experience. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing in the right circumstances.

I've attended a few county court cases over the last few months, and we've won each of them. Most recently we've won free parking in our shared space for every Leaseholder. Next we'll take it to court and ensure that right expands out to every Tenant. Then, to people granted the right to park there by Tenants / Leaseholders. After that we'll look to getting security sorted, and some much needed aesthetic upgrades. After that we'll start looking to getting some of our money back that they've wasted.

Basically, if you're not afraid of grafting, or of herding cats, I'd recommend it. It's gratifying when you win against these big corporate arseholes.