If you agree a price for the property , and in the middle of the 12 week period between having your offer accepted and completion, the ground rent and service charge is due and paid by the vendor, do you expect to find them tacked on to the final bill ? (No mention of it as being my responsibility til now)

You will normally have to pay your portion of this one would assume. The ground rent might not be an issue as it is normally a small sum, but the maintenance charge is normally a lot higher, so expect a bill for however many months of the annual premium you will be the owner.

Mmm--yes I can see that point the way you put it. That would seem fair -although thats not whats happened , Ive been charged for the whole 12 months service and g.r instead of 9mths.Id previously viewed it like selling a car with the benefit of a new mot and then charging the buyer for the mot when he picked it up! Suppose the fact I offered before these things became due makes the difference. No chance of my seller compromising sadly, hes too mean.! Ill be lucky to find glass in the windows when I move in.

Hmmm, I don't blame you for being a bit p***ed off personally. If you hadn't exchanged contracts when he paid the bills, I don't see how they can be your responsibility. If the sale had fallen through, he would have had no-one to pass the costs onto.
If he had just refused to pay, the baliffs would have been after him as his name would have been on the bill!
I would feel the same as you with regards to your car analogy. At most I would only expect to be liable from the date I moved in but would expect to start paying the landlord direct, not reimbursing the previous owner.

I am suprised your Solicitor is happy with this. Why should you pay for a maintenance charge on a property you do not live in? Does your Solicitor expect you will be happy to pay this man's last few months gas and electric bill? Go back to your Solicitor and ask him/her to sort this out for you.

I agree that the normal state of affairs would be for the current owner to pay the bills up front and then you to be charged for the relevant proportion when you pay for the property on completion. I would not expect you to either pay nothing or pay the whole lot for 12 months.

Yes, the owner should pay.

If you don't want to jinx the sale, then say nothing, and pass the bill on to him after you've secured the place, for him to pay the proportion of the time that he still owned the property.

Like utility bills, ground rent and service charges apply to the owner, not to the potential owner. You only become liable for these billd after you have completed the exchange. If he wants you to pay extra charges then he should take this money out of the price he is charging you for the property.

Ary.

Thank you all, at least I feel vindicated for my p*ssedoffness!! .Some of you may remember that Im the person with the vendor from hellwho lied about subsidence, who agreed all the fittings and fixtures in the sale, and then right after surveys etc, fills in a form to say hes taking everything including the door handles , then holds up exchange at the last minute for a couple of days because we wont agree to pay him £1000 for his pot plants that we had turned down from day 1.
He's emigrating so weve been told whatever rights we win on paper will be a waste of time, he can do what he likes.
Our solicitor has been absolutely terrrible in not returning calls etc. Because of lies and the fiddling of our vendor , he has had a few extra phone calls and checks etc apparently. He has informed us normally he would charge extra time and fees but wont on this occasion.I suspect if I challenge the vendor on the service ch. bill now, Id get a renewed bill from the solicitor, so Im reluctant to risk it. Ill just make a model of my seller and stick pins in it to make me fee better. I already lost the best part of 2k in my Xmastime failed sale, so I guess this is chickenfeed in comparison. Happy days!

quote:

If you don't want to jinx the sale, then say nothing, and pass the bill on to him after you've secured the place, for him to pay the proportion of the time that he still owned the property.

Forgot to say that the service 'gr bill has actually been included within the completion statement , to be paid on that day along with the balance for the flat.It goes to my solicitor for him to pay on to my vendors, so I couldnt risk just leaving it short, they might withhold the key and that would leave me in a right mess.

really? that sucks. But having been held over a quagmire by the last people, I would hesitate to trust people who sound similarly dodgy.

If you can find the money, then ok, it's a very small add on to your place. BUT. If it's an example of what they intend to do - to tack on extra ridiculous charges at the last minute as you have agreed to their previous demands.

Ary.

Ill let you know after the 19th whether we get to have a complete flat, or one with half its inards missing!