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If you've been been doing the same thing for the past ten years and they haven't corrected you then they're going to have a pretty tough time enforcing a change out of the blue. IANAL but I think the principle you want to be looking at is estoppel.
aggi-
I think the principle you want to be looking at is estoppel.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/estoppel.asp
"Equitable estoppel prevents someone from taking a legal position that is contrary or inconsistent with their previous stance if doing so harms the other party."@Dammit After 10 years, changing the rules and leaving you £265 poorer. That seems to fit with inconsistent and doing harm
user69121
Our service charge is invoiced twice per year, for e.g. in December 2019 for the first half of 2020, and then in July 2020 for the second half of 2020.
We've paid, since 2010, on what are known as the English quarter days, once per quarter.
So, this year we were issued the service charge in December 2019, and the first half was due to be paid at the end of this month, the second half at the end of June.
I'd actually paid the first half in February this year when I paid the section 20, so we had £711 outstanding, which would have been cleared by standing order at the end of this month, and actually putting us a quarter ahead of the schedule that we'd paid by for the past ten years.
Why am I writing this? Because they have sent our arrears to a firm of solicitors for collection, adding ~£265 to the costs for legal fees.
I don't have anything in writing covering the arrangement to pay quarterly against a six month charge, but we'd done it for ten years - does having done that for so long give me anything I can rely on when speaking with the solicitors?
Should there have been a letter before action? They have gone straight to a demand for payment with the legal fees on top.