Service Charges: Devon Mansions; Fair Community Housing Services.

Are you a leaseholder in live in Devon Mansions, St Johns Estate, St Olaves Estate, Lewes House, Coxson Way, Fair Street, Hartland House?

The amount leaseholders are expected to pay for service charges, major works and capital works bills through Southwark Council and FCHS (Fair Community Housing Services) is disgusting. We are seeing the same repairs time and time again, I mean, do we really need a new roof once every 2 years? Or brick repairs every 12 months? We seem to need asbestos removal once a year, which is odd as it doesn't grow back. We have endless scaffolding that costs 30K a year, but no one at Southwark or the TMO knows who requested it or why. As the Southwark right hand doesn’t know what the left foot is doing, no one in the repairs team seems to even check if these a guarantee on the intercom that was installed 18 months ago.. or whether the new lift can be repaired if it breaks. We are now being told £1000 of fire safety equipment is needed and compulsory, but in fact, its not at all. The average leaseholder is looking at bills of 12K and up in services charges this year.

You email, call, and send carrier pigeons to Southwark for answers, and get no reply. Then after two years of complaining, you are told “don’t worry, that person was fired for incompetence, and this new person is here to fix all”. But of course, the new person is as incompetence as the last and you need to start all over.

There seems to be small clusters of leaseholders fighting this in each block, why don’t we work together for answers?