So imagine my surprise to come across the identical problem with the same company. Identical except my charges are different. So what happened, what was th eoutcome. Like you I'd pay for the not so good services they provide BUT the admin charges for mailing a letter being what they charge for a years worth of service seems well unreasonable to me. Not to their lawyers though. Please let me know what happened with this, countrywide seem to be extremely rude and unreasonable.

Thank you for your prompt reply, I have emailed the company back due to their "lack of understanding" on the reasons for having such a late payment. I shall also contact the OFT to see what their response would be.
Thanks again

They may have obligations in terms of fair trading. See if the OFT can advise on this. The £100 is obviously a penalty and the OFT has ruled that these must only reflect their reasonable costs. £100 is not reasonable, but perhaps £10 for each letter chasing the payment would be ok.

HI,

Well basically I rent a property in Surrey where I currently work, I also own a house (freehold) in Devon which I rent out to my tenant for a low rate but thats another point!!

When I bought the property one of the conditions of the esate was that a management company (then called Labyrinth) would be running the grounds and keeping communial areas clean and the grass cut. Well the company was useless to say the least and for the two years I lived there a number of residents complained about how the areas were not being kept in a tidy condtion and the grass wasn't being cut or tended too.

Any how I moved away and after a while informed the company about my new address so that I could continue to pay the charges which should be sent quarterly. Well I recently received a letter dated the 27th Jan 2012 from the company who have now changed names (CountryWide Management) stating that I owed £112.98p for services from Apr 11 to March 12 obviously nearly 1 yrs worth of charges.

Now this is where the problems start:-

On the 28th Jan 12 I was injured when trying to arrest someone (Im a police officer) I ended up tearing muscles in my shoulder and also having a large heamotomah on my left ankle. This prevented me from walking and also lifting items, I was generally not well and unable to really care for myself in the five days I was then off for. I returned back to work for seven days before finally having another day off on the 10th Feb.

It was on the 10 or 11th Feb 12 that I then received another letter from the management company stating that I owed them the £112 plus now an additional £100 administration charge. There was no explanation regarding this charge and what it actually entailed other than saying that if I failed to pay within 7 days a further charge of £125 would be added to my account and a solicitor be appointed!!!

I emailed the company stating that unfortunately due to injury I didn't receive the letter dated the 27th Jan 12, and that I was more than happy to settle up the £112. I also pointed out that I haven't received any invoices from them since my change of address in 2010 and that I was disputing the £100 admin charge. I also requested copies of the invoices and enquired about the work that they were carrying out on the "green" areas on the estate.

I ended up finally getting a reply after having to send a further TWO emails to them yesterday, the reply was very short and to sum up in a few less words was:-

We have your correct address on file, therefore I am unsure of how you did not receive your service charge demands that were due on the 1^st April 2011 and 1^st October 2011

As we have the correct contact details on file for you, the administration fee will remain on your account

There were a few other lines added stating that they keep ONE grass bank cut and this was what I was paying for but my grumblings lay with the ridiculous charge they have added to my account.

My questions to you are:-

firstly how can I dispute this further?

Can they add further charges to my account in the mean time if I do not pay the admin charge?

Anything else I can challange them on regarding this charge, break down of costs etc?

Your help would be greatly appreciated, I shall be paying the £112.98 today as I have already advised them but will not be paying that £100 anytime soon.

Regards

Rob