We have broken down our frequently asked questions into relevant categories. If you can’t find what you are looking for please contact the team
Freehold ownership means that the owner owns the land that the property lies on. Freehold ownership can be common for houses but for flats the freeholder is usually a third-party owner acting as the landlord. Leasehold ownership means that the leaseholder has exclusive ownership of the property but for a fixed number of years laid out within the lease. Leaseholders are in a contract to use the property and this type of ownership is mostly used for flats and apartments.
the lease is the contract between two or three parties and outlines the obligations between the leaseholder, landlord and management company (if there is one).
Official copies of your lease and title register are available via the Land Registry website: www.landregistry.gov.uk
Your service charge is your legal apportionment of the share of the costs of maintaining and insuring the communal areas of your building in accordance with the terms of your lease. Typically, this may include such costs as the cleaning of communal areas, ground maintenance, lift maintenance, repairs and maintenance which may also include sections of the building that you do not directly benefit from the use of. Your lease will detail the specific items which are included in your service charge.
If your house is on a development where there are communal arrears for all homeowners to enjoy, there will usually be a clause within your deed of transfer (TP1) detailing your obligation to pay service charges which can sometimes be referred to as estate charges.
A balancing charge is a demand normally dictated in your lease that is usually sent around 6 months after the year end and is due to the overall expenditure exceeding the budget. The balancing charge is distributed between all owners in accordance with the lease or TP1.
RMC – a company with the responsibility for the management and maintenance of the service to the property, including collecting service charge. They are usually parties to the lease, however do not hold the same legal interest as the Tenant and Landlord.
RTM – is a company created by the leaseholders to take control of the management and maintenance of their property. There is a process to be followed with qualifying restrictions in order to obtain the RTM.
Both RTM and RMC are operated by unpaid directors, who are usually appointed from the residents themselves. Both companies have to follow the regulations of their Memorandum and Articles of Association that are created when the company is set up. These can be found on the Companies House website.
Reserve funds which are also known as sinking funds, are contribution payments towards a major expenditure in the future. This can be spent on roof or lift refurbishments for example. The reserve funds are sometimes kept in a separate trust account to the service charges.
Our trained professionals are available from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. You can contact us either by:
We employ an out of hours service team to look after you once our in-house team have gone home. They have direct access to our system and are well placed to assist if and when required. You can contact them on our usual number 01253 640040.
Should you wish to update your details you can do this by either:
This will be detailed on all correspondence we send to you. It will be in the following format, Z001/1/001. If you are unable to locate this, please contact a member of our team who would be happy to assist.
In order to access our client portal simply head to www.homesteadcsl.co.uk. In the top right-hand corner, you will see a ‘My Homestead’ option which will take you to the login screen for the portal.
If you are registering for the first time you will need your tenant reference and the email address we have registered for you.
If you do not have these details, please contact a member of our team who would be happy to provide these for you.
If you would like to receive all correspondence by email, please email your consent through to enquiries@homesteadcsl.co.uk where our team will action this for you.
In the event that you would like to raise a complaint we would encourage to first speak to your dedicated site manager to see if a resolution can be reached. Should you feel that your issue is not resolved we would encourage you to initiate our formal complaints procedure which can be found here:
Homestead Consultancy Services Limited are managing agents that are appointed by directors of RMCs or RTMs, freehold landlords or sometimes developers to complete and manage maintenance and services for the communal areas on behalf of the block or estate.
Homestead are proud to be full members of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (TPI), the Association of Retirement Housing Managers (ARHM) and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). In addition, the majority of Homestead’s team hold qualifications with The Property Institute (TPI). Homestead were one of only 4 property management companies to be recently awarded outstanding by TPI. We have won various awards within the industry, the most recent being ‘Regional Property Management company of the year’.
Homestead charge a set fee for managing your development based on the number of units in accordance with the RICS Residential Management Service Charge code. Some clients require additional services and these along with our standard fees are agreed with our clients before we commence management. We are paid for fees via your service charge budget and you will see this as a line item in the service charge budget that you receive. For transparency we also detail our fees in the annual accounts that are sent out to all leaseholders.
Homestead deal with the communal areas of your block or development in accordance with our management agreement. We work with your resident directors to help, advise and manage the services your RMC or RTM are responsible for under the leases or TP1s. We do not deal with the internal areas of individual properties or get involved with lettings or tenants.
We accept payments via standing order, BACS or Cheque. If paying by BACS or Cheque, payment and bank details can be found at the bottom of every invoice you receive. Alternatively, you can also pay via your account on the ‘My Homestead Portal’. We do not accept cash payments.
You should have received this via email or post with every demand. Alternatively, you can also access this via your account on the ‘My Homestead portal’.
It is very important that your development has good cash flow to ensure we can continue to pay for essential services such as electricity and water as well as being able to appoint and pay contractors. Late payments affect the development and your fellow residents. We do appreciate that these matters may be overlooked from time to time so we will send a reminder letter if payment is not received on or before the due date.
If payment is still not forthcoming you may be charged additional admin fees and/or a debt recovery fee. Once the matter is passed to the debt recovery specialists all communication must be referred through them until the matter is resolved.
All outstanding balances pass to the new owner on sale if not previously settled. It is up to the purchaser to ensure the account is clear or agree any retention to be held before completion of the purchase. Your solicitor should advise you on this.
The service charges each year are calculated with a budget that is set at the beginning of the year based on the anticipated expenditure required to run the development. The lease normally stipulates how the service charge should be billed. At the end of the year a set of accounts are produced detailing what was actually spent and on what. This is then compared to the budget and will result in either a surplus (where we collected more with the budget than was actually spent) or a deficit (where we spent more in the year than we collected with the budget)
Any deficit is normally recharged to leaseholders as a balancing charge and any surplus is credited to owners as a balancing credit. All owners should receive a detailed set of accounts and a service charge statement which will detail the amount of any balancing charge or credit. If you have any questions regarding this, please contact a member of our team who would happy to assist.
If you are a leaseholder or owner you can report an issue via the following:
If you are a leaseholder or owner you can order a new key/fob via the following:
If you are a tenant renting out the property, unfortunately you must go through your landlord
Whilst we understand that some residents may not have space in their individual flats, we do have to advise that the halls and corridors form part of the common areas and do not belong to flats, nor do residents have permission to use them to store any items.
Communal halls, corridors, stairwells and cupboards are there for the benefit of all residents and in the event of an emergency they must provide safe passage for anyone attempting to evacuate the building or for the relevant authorities to gain access. As such communal areas should always remain free from obstruction.
Additionally, storage of any items within these areas presents a fire risk as it allows fire to spread quickly between floors.
We therefore ask that if items belong to you that you kindly remove them. As they present such a massive risk to the safety of residents, if items remain in the communal areas, we will have no option but to have these removed and disposed of.
We do of course apologise if you are receiving these letters and they are not applicable to you. We thank you in advance for your understanding and assistance regarding this matter.
We realise how distressing living with a noisy neighbour can be and we would recommend the following action:
You can find TPI's advice note on dealing with noisy neighbours here:
Firstly, it is important to check your lease to confirm the parking arrangements for your building. Sometimes you may assume a bay is allocated because you have treated it as such for a long period of time, but it is important this is confirmed in the lease.
If the lease specifies that your property comes with a dedicated parking space and someone else is using it then you are completely within your rights to politely ask your neighbours not to use the space, provided you feel safe/comfortable doing so.
If you continue to have a problem then please report to our maintenance team on 01253 640040 or via email to maintenance@homesteadcsl.c.uk so we can help you resolve the issue. It could be that we need to send a reminder to all residents in the block, put up private parking signs or increase/put in place car parking control.
Any illegal activities should be reported to the relevant authorities so they can be investigated and addressed as required. Whilst we can update our records with any reports, we will not be able to assist in investigating or resolving any suspected illegal activities.
If you live in a development which is run by a Residents Management Company (RMC) or Right to Manage Company (RTM) you may be eligible to become a director of the company, whilst this is an unpaid role, it would give you significant rights and responsibilities in respect of the management of the property and estate. Please contact your dedicated site manager in the first instance who will be able to confirm the criteria and guide you through the process.
