Anybody else witholding payment to Scanlans at all?
If so, on what grounds? We are having a bit of 'fun' with them at the moment.
We have only paid part of the amount that they have invoiced us for the first 3 months of 2011. The amount that we have not paid is for 6 months of maintenance, 6 months of cleaning, and 6 months 'access control'. They are now saying we are breach of our lease, and they will be forced to consider legal proceedings if payment is not made within 14 days. I'm currently looking into my legal standing on this before I give in and pay them. But I wondered if anyone else is having the same issues as us.

Our reasoning for not paying....

Maintenance.... there were lights out in the 4th floor plus the stairs from when we completed in the summer, until they were finally fixed on 7th Jan. Plus the poor state of the security door by the lift in the undercroft.

Cleaning- The lift has never been cleaned (until this week that is) and the walls are covered in marks in a fair few places.

Access control.... I'm sure I don't need to tell you all about how poor the buttons are on the access keypads!

Totally agree with you, and love your guts for witholding your payments.
There are loads of things that annoy us, but we never do anything about it.

The forum is a brilliant idea and hopefully if we all stick together something might be done about it.

the managment fee is hardly worth £20, let alone £75 per month....

Sam and Ed

Have you sent your complaints by email? I sent a long email to Becki SMITH on 5 January listing all the problems from our perspective on 3rd floor. This included the lights and the door from the under croft. I had an immediate reply and the lights (although still not working properly) now light up and the under croft door was finally fixed (again still not working completely as it should). I emailed Becki again yesterday, Thursday 3 February about the lights on 3rd floor (again), the lights on the stairway, the fact that someone fell down the stairs in the dark, the leaking guttering over the stairway windows, and the fact that the garage door has been open for over a week.
Becki replied that the contractors are due to come back about the lighting and the garage fobs will be returned and the door closed again from 14 February. I hope nothing has been stolen while the door has been open.
I am not sure about the legality of withholding payment. A lawyer should be able to tell you.

My husband goes spare about the keypads. The ones from the undercroft are quite small and he has large hands so they are not easy to use.
The ones on the bridge door are very sensitive and low down so again not easy to use.

I wouldn't withhold payment if I were you. It is a term of the lease and ultimately Scanlans could bring forfeiture proceedings against you for doing so. If those proceedings were successful you would lose the apartment and get no money back for it. My advice would be to pay up and bring a case against the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal if you're not happy.

Don't take this as gospel, and as always I take no responsibility for any loss caused as a result of following my advice. I always suggest contacting a qualified solicitor, I'm just a trainee

I did a little research during the week, and ended up speaking to the leasehold advisory service (http://www.lease-advice.org/). They said exactly the same thing, which is why I am now going to pay up (with a letter stating it's in protest) and then I'll be looking into whether to contact the LVT about it or not.

Until yesterday, my only contact with Becki Smith had been by letter. But I called her number yesterday regarding the roller shutter door. She pointed the finger at Bellway, so I called them, they pointed the finger at her/Scanlans. Neither of them were willing to do anything about it, and had no regards for our security or the fact that our home insurance and car insurance would certainly never cover us should anything happen whilst the door was locked wide open. They just said it was the only way that they could ensure that all the keyfobs would be collected.
A little more consultation would have been nice, rather than a letter on the day they locked it open!

At least we can shut the door again now

Hi just read the comments about Scanlans. We think they are far too expensive for what they do. We were told that it was because of the lift and maintenance of it. Our daughter has a new 2 bed apartment in Middlewich and only pays £40 per month. I am trying to find out how much the apartments at the park pay as I think they have lifts too.
I will let you know if I manage to find out.