Raithie Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 No idea where to put this but any advice would be much appreciated. Long winded story alert: My wife and I own our flat. We live in a block of 6 and there is a gardener who does some external work throughout the year i.e. grass cutting, bush trimming (not my wifes but the bushes outside), gutter cleaning. The work is all external and there's no internal work that gets done by him and from what we're led to believe this guy has done this work at our flat for years and years, well before we moved in 8+ years ago. Since we've been home owners the cost each year has been between £100 to £120 per household which is fine. The block of flats are split into 2 so there's 12 households in total that contribute towards the gardeners yearly invoice. A new neighbour has moved into our block and the gutters at that point were beginning to look like Jurassic Park. For whatever reason the current gardener was dragging his heels so this new neighbour spoke to all the households (12 in total) to see if they'd mind if he got someone to come out and clean the gutters. Our entire block were happy with this but the other block weren't. Our block agreed we'd just go ahead and get our current block done at £25 per household. Guy came out sharpish and work was done. Great. Few weeks ago I got a chap at my door and it's my 95 year old downstairs neighbour. He was upset that a tree around the back of our flats had gotten so overgrown that it was blocking sunlight coming into his bedroom. There are trees also encroaching over a dividing wall between our block and the back garden of a property from the street opposite. This tree literally hangs over my car , it's no big deal to me but my neighbour was trying to use this as leverage to get me to agree to have the gardener come out and trim back these trees (in my opinion anyway). At no point did my neighbour ask if I was ok with the gardener doing this job, it was almost like he was trying to put it back on me to try and see about getting the neighbour from the opposite street to trim his tree. Anyhoo what's happened now is the gardener has been out and done a shit load of work to these trees and he's said my 95 year old neighbour spoke to all the households and we gave him the go ahead to ask the gardener to do this. That is a lot of bollocks as neither myself and a couple of other people in our block were consulted nor agreed to this. My worry is I suspect the yearly charge is going to be significantly higher than £100 to £120 and I'm a bit miffed that I might have to fork out a shed load of cash for something I never really was overly interested in having done. The invoice usually comes through this month which isn't the best time of the year to have to fork out extra money. The neighbour who organised the gutters to get cleaned thinks the gardener has done this work to the trees to compensate what he'll have lost out on getting for not getting to clean our gutters. His fee rarely changes each year as the bulk of the work he does throughout the year remains the same until now when he's went mental and basically cut down trees.....in a conservation area I hasten to add but he claims he got the Council's permission. So, assuming this invoice comes in at some astronomical figure, could I ask for a breakdown on what each job costs and deduct what he's charging for the tree cutting seen as I never asked for the work to be done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjc Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Partick Housing Association charges £60pcm factoring/building insurance. Yours sounds cheap! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Buy a house Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugster Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 9 minutes ago, Raithie said: Anyhoo Mods, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskychimp Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 I'd pay it if the guy has done the work but I'd cause a big fuss to make sure everyone knows I won't pay if it happens again. I'd guess you can actually refuse to pay though. A few trees trimmed by a non specialist, split between 12 flats, shouldn't be that much though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raithie Posted December 1, 2017 Author Share Posted December 1, 2017 18 minutes ago, sjc said: Yours sounds cheap! What can I say, I live in Fife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEADOWXI Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 So you're the one paying to maintain a Flat Earth................................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snobot Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Take it there is no written contract for the usual work? (£100 - £120 / year stuff)? The gardener may be at it but arguably acted in good faith based on an agreement with the 95 year old, acting on behalf of all the flats (despite having no authority to do so). The gardener wasn’t to know that. You may have to pay up as a block, but how you choose to allocate costs is a matter of agreement between the residents eg callously force the 95 yr old to foot the bill as they made the contract! Might be worth getting a written agreement in future for the annual work, and ensure any optional extras are costed and require a quorum of residents to agree before anything is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Blades Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 The first flat I owned had a row of garages at the rear, this was accessed from a lane around 100 yards down the road which swept round in front of a very large detached house (mansion) there were 2 other flats in my building. One morning I got a solicitors letter containing an invoice for £3500, this was over 20 years ago. The owners of the mansion had had the lane Tarmac'd (I never noticed as I parked on the street) they also neglected to consult me or my two neighbours in advance & had stopped the tarmac at their drive leaving the 50 or so yards between their drive & our garages untouched. It was shared private property (the lane). I asked my neighbours about it & they were as taken aback as I was. So I took the letter & invoice & posted through the mansions big brass letterbox. Never heard another thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Pete Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Tell him to sling his hook. If you didn't give the go ahead then it's not owed by you. If he piles it into his normal yearly invoice then pay him only what he would usually have charged. If he complains, tell him to f**k off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ2 Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Find out how much it is before worrying about it. My old flat had communal grass which some old boy took it upon himself to cut. One day a note went up stating this c**t was after £30 off each flat for doing it, citing he’d done it for free for years. I’d only moved in about 4 months prior. But for the sake of £30 I just gave it to the old boy. He came asking again (via a note at the communal door) about 3 months before I was due to move out, that request went unanswered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 46 minutes ago, Mr X said: Buy a house The estate where I stay has the grounds managed by Speirs and Gumley, it works out about £35-£45 a quarter depending on whats been done (tree maintenance, grass cutting, weeding) . There are quite a few houses on the estate and it's pretty much a licence to print money for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raithie Posted December 1, 2017 Author Share Posted December 1, 2017 10 minutes ago, Snobot said: Take it there is no written contract for the usual work? (£100 - £120 / year stuff)? That I'll need to look into. I vaguely remember something about a £10 pcm charge for the external maintenance but from what I remember this was just a general agreement between all households and had been on the go for years. The invoice is basically a hand written note that the guy photo copies and puts through everyone's door and year on year all it says is "please find my invoice to the tune of £1200. This covers grass cutting, bush trimming, gutter cleaning. Please hand monies to number 27". It's all just cash in hand. 21 minutes ago, Snobot said: Might be worth getting a written agreement in future for the annual work, and ensure any optional extras are costed and require a quorum of residents to agree before anything is done. Agreed. 18 minutes ago, Sweet Pete said: Tell him to sling his hook. If you didn't give the go ahead then it's not owed by you. If he piles it into his normal yearly invoice then pay him only what he would usually have charged. If he complains, tell him to f**k off. I like this idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Danger Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Hit him on the head with a hammer, Not a claw hammer, you can’t ensure that they’ll do the job, use a mash hammer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ2 Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Hit him on the head with a hammer, Not a claw hammer, you can’t ensure that they’ll do the job, use a mash hammer. But, as far as we know, he’s not a cow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Danger Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Just now, NJ2 said: But, as far as we know, he’s not a cow? Don’t want to get into bovine gender politics but I don’t think he can be a cow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ2 Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Don’t want to get into bovine gender politics but I don’t think he can be a cow. I thought it was only cows we were supposed to smash in the nut to kill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerberus Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 Don't pay him. He's 95. He'll either forget or be dead next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjca Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 What about the fact the maintenance guy has done the work in good faith and I'm sure he needs the money at this time of year as well , ps mind his Christmas tip ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 2 minutes ago, gjca said: What about the fact the maintenance guy has done the work in good faith and I'm sure he needs the money at this time of year as well , ps mind his Christmas tip ! ^^^ Maintenance guy found Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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