A man threatened with losing this home over a service charge dispute has a warning for others after winning his case.
Joshua Moore-Fairbairn moved into his flat in Bentley Road in Toxteth in January 2019 after buying it at auction. Because of the way he bought the property, he was given little information ahead of the sale.
Upon completing, he was told about ground rent and service charge arrangements and given a copy of his lease. He then paid the management company, Regent Property Management, his first month’s service charge.
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Shortly after this was when Mr Moore-Fairbairn’s problems began. He received a demand for payment even though he already paid, later finding out the money had been used to pay the debt of a previous owner.
Due to the terms of the lease, he believed he had no option but to pay again – although began to look more closely at the service charge breakdown and questioned some of the charges.
He asked Regent Property Management, who were managing the property on behalf of the freeholder, Tuscola (110) Limited, for more details but says he received no response.
The following year he received his annual service charge bill and discovered the management of the building had changed hands. Epworth PM Ltd were now responsible for collecting service charges and they had increased his bill by £8,000 to nearly £20,000 a year, with an advance bill for 2021 coming in at over £27,000.
Shortly after, the coronavirus pandemic arrived and Joshua found himself unexpectedly without an income. He contacted Epworth PM explaining his situation and requested more time to pay. He said the company refused to discuss any arrangements with him, sending a letter about further action just 17 days after his first missed payment.
Within less than a month, the matter had been transferred to a debt collection agency. Mr Moore-Fairbairn continued to try to make an arrangement with both Epworth and the debt management company, even involving his local MP and a housing union in a bid to make some progress but to no avail.
He also questioned some of the figures provided for work carried out on the building – including over £700 a year for gardening a small patch of grass outside the house and other charges relating to cleaning and caretaker duties.
In June, Epworth PM served him a backdated bill for the 2019 service charge after carrying out an ‘audit’ which added nearly £500 to his bill. A further £500 was added for late payment fees and instruction of a solicitor.
By September, he had received a county court notification on behalf of the British Virgin Island’s based freeholder Tuscola (110) Ltd and director Michael Gubbay. Due to the court case, at the time Epworth PM said it and Tuscola 110 would not comment on the situation.
It was at this stage that Moore-Fairbairn began to make contact with other leaseholders in the building, later forming their own management group and engaging a company to look after the communal areas which has led to a huge reduction in service charges.
He had requested a tribunal hearing over the service charges and the management of the communal areas in response to the court summons. After finally heading to tribunal last year, the case was then returned to court.
Mr Moore-Fairbairn said he had prepared a legal bundle disputing the service charges, the timeline in which Epworth got a debt collector involved and his numerous attempts to make an arrangement.
In the end however, it turned out Epworth and Tuscola had no legal right to chase for any service charges at all.
When the court looked into the case, they discovered Mr Moore-Fairbairn’s lease agreement did not allow the freeholder to appoint a management company. The situation hinged on the existence a previous management company set up in the past by leaseholders in the building, which stopped being in operation but was never disbanded.
This was the management company named on Mr Moore-Fairbairn’s lease, not Regent or Epworth PM. When the company ceased to be operational, Tuscola 110 appointed Regent in its place – something they had no legal ability to do.
After Tuscola 110’s case against him was dismissed, nearly two years on from when his nightmare began, Mr Moore-Fairbairn told the ECHO that although he welcomes the court’s decision he he finds it “frustrating” with no “relief” at the outcome.
He said: “This whole situation has been going on since March 2020. I would love to tell you that I feel relieved and in a lot of ways I think I had come to terms with it.
“The stress has been immense, but I’m a stubborn guy though. It took the life energy though for sure, I’ve definitely taken a few years off but you can’t let people get away with this kind of thing.
“I had been living for two years with the guillotine of the court case. It’s a technicality, the issue of the overcharging of services didn’t come out and there are no repercussions at all for Epworth or Tuscola.
“They’d been collecting money from me they had no right to collect in the first place. It feels like a rabbit hole that goes so much deeper, there’s lots of parties involved, loads of money getting made.
“This little property at Bentley road is just the tip of a very big iceberg when it comes to the way freeholders operate.”
Mr Moore-Fairbairn says he is now determined to see changes in the industry.
He said: “The concept of freeholders having any say or any control or authorisation when it comes to service charge collection just needs to go away.
“Responsibility for managing property should go onto leaseholders as a collective which they can either manage themselves or through a third party they choose.
“Then they would at least retain autonomy or authorisation and not suddenly fall victim to ever escalating service charges. It would completely change the incentivisation of service charges.
“Instead of being a back scratching relationship between freeholders and contractors who say we’ll pay you a bit of commission for hiring us, none of that would exist as it wouldn’t incentivise the freeholder, instead there would be an incentive to the contractors to do a good and fair job.”
Mr Moore-Fairbairn said that after his story was published last year, several people have contacted him suffering similar leasehold nightmares. He said he is determined to use what he has learnt during his own situation to help others.
He said: “I’ve got the bit between my teeth now, I’m not letting go, this kind of unscrupulous behaviour has got to stop. I hope telling my story will raise some awareness and give others hope not to give up.”
Mr Moore-Fairbairn has some stark advice for people thinking of buying leasehold property at auction: “Just don’t do it, please. You really don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.”
Regent Property Management, Epworth PM and Tuscola 110 were all contacted for comment but did not respond. When contacted by Mr Moore-Fairbairn after the ruling, Mr Gubbay said he was no longer involved with Tuscola (110) Ltd.
