Owning your own home

2 main concerns so far are 1) diddly squat in the sinking fund 2) what if 1/5 of the flats didn't want to pay for something e.g. new roof. Don't think there is a contract on how decisions are made.

Thanks for the tag @Howard, I'd have missed this. @bobble I think you've got all the advice you need here but I'll add my voice to it as someone who runs an RTM (i.e. where residents manage the block ourselves).

Do you know if you have to pay a service charge on a monthly basis? If so, things are more formal and you'll have a structure for collecting things like building insurance and cleaning and the like. In that situation it's not so very different from paying an external managing agent to maintain the block, except that your directors make the decisions, and tend to be a bit saner with the cash than external managing agents (as it's THEIR money too). This is easier in a way as residents will already be used to paying out money for shared utility to themselves.

If you don't have a monthly service charge then it'll be much less formal a process and I don't yet know too much about it so I'll keep quiet on my advice as @Brommers will bollock me if I get it wrong.

In terms of your concerns, I wouldn't worry so much about either one. Many leases don't allow for a sinking fund to be collected at all; other leases only allow it for a specific purpose (i.e. it's fine to have a sinking fund if you know you need a new roof in five years time, but you can't just build up reserves on general principle just in case something happens); others don't allow for a sinking fund at all and any major or unexpected works would need to be invoiced directly. It would be worth confirming with your conveyancer which you have. It's not necessarily bad management not to have one.

In terms of what residents can do if works go ahead and someone just point blank refuses to pay, there are a few legal options open to you. You can seek a judgement - I think the way its supposed to work is that you obtain a judgement at FTT then enforce it through the County Court system - and you can add that judgement to their mortgage (i.e. they can't sell unless they make the payment to your company). But the vast majority of people won't ever let it get to that point. Prior to that you'd send polite emails, firm emails, letters, you'd get your neighbours to go over and have a word, you'd cajole, threaten, or compliment your way into getting them to pay their damn bills, you'd use social pressure, etc, way before that point. I manage a block of 24 flats and we've only ever had to go down the legal route with one of them; the vast remainder are just glad for someone else to do the work efficiently and don't want to do anything to mess that up.