Sold my leasehold flat - can i claim back unfair service charges?

[leasee123]

hi

i have recently sold my leasehold flat. as part of the sale the FH requested i pay all service charges due which i did in order for the sale to progress. the service charges were unfair. can i claim this back anyway?

thanks

[andydd]

I think not. Leases are assigned to the new leaseholder who takes on the new responsibilities.

[leasee123]

are you sure about this?

[andydd]

Im pretty certain although te law is complex.

For example when a property is sold, it is possible for any debts to be passed onto the new owner who would have to pay for any money that you were owing, this is why conveyancers do checks about this.

Im pretty certain that claiming back any money would fail, as the first part of any court claim would normally prove the contract between the two parties. i. I am LH and X is FH.

I think GR may be different but yours relates to service charges ?. In any event how do you know you were over charged per se ?. Surely this would be arguable at an FTT to see if amounts were unreasonable unless you have clear evidence that service charge was £100 for example but some how you ended up paying £200.

Have a look at FTT decisions online at LEASE site (http://decisions.lease-advice.org/) I'm pretty sure there are similar ones, the first step is the parties MUST be LH and FH, yet you are no longer LH, the new LH may have opportunity to make claim though

Thtas just my opinion though be worth double checking perhaps give LEASE a call, they are quite good, although do run into problems with complex stuff but yours should be a simple fundamental question.