Cyclical Maintenance

say that 5 times fast…

This is the maintenance of the building that is required on a regular basis according to the lease. Possibly every 5 years to decorate and repair the external areas including the roof and the common way areas i.e internal decorations.

Avoiding this can potentially reduce the value of your home/asset, affect the buildings insurance and cause underlying damage to the fabric of the building. Buildings insurance generally doesn’t cover damage caused by wear and tear due to lack of maintenance - important to note!

Now, a good managing agent will budget for this in advance, advise you of what should be included and have a surveyor draw up a specification of works that can be phased if necessary according to the buildings service charge budget levels. A meeting would also ideally be arranged for all leaseholders to discuss the works required which should hopefully avoid any potential disputes and non payment which are common in major works projects. Communication is key at this point!

There is legislation to follow once works have been agreed in order to raise funds or use funds already in the service charge pot (which is the ideal scenario) Your agent will (hopefully) send out section 20 notices to all leaseholders (and the freeholder if you are a RTM company as good practice) which notify everyone of the planned works. This will be covered in a separate blog post so please stay tuned or sign up for notifications of upcoming blogs..

I hope you found this valuable and please let me know if you have any questions or wish to share any good or bad maintenance stories!