If you have bought a property in a shared block on a JMB estate, or if you have bought a house that receives services from the JMB and the Council, then you will have bought your property under a legal arrangement and you are known as leaseholder or freeholder. This means that you have a contract between yourselves and Southwark Council which sets out the responsibilities on both sides, known as a Lease or a Deed of Covenant.

The Lease is a legal contract that sets out the landlord and Lessee’s Rights, Obligations and Responsibilities, typically for a period of 125 years from the date of completion of the sale.  Dependant on the year of the sale under the Right to Buy initiative lease terms can vary per property, however the original lease terms remain in place regardless of subsequent assignments of the title during the 125-year term.

As well as Leasehold, the JMB also manages Freehold contracts known as Deed of Covenants. Unlike the Lease, this contract is between the original purchaser and the Landlord only; therefore, a contract known as a Transfer of Part is entered into by any subsequent assignments of the title and the Landlord.

For all of the JMBs residential portfolio, Southwark Council is the Superior Landlord and Leathermarket JMB are the managing agent.

• • Maintain, repair, renew and improve the block and estate

• • Insure the property

• • Levy service charges – these must be reasonable.

• • Consult with leaseholders about repairs that will cost individual leaseholders more than £250 (unless repairs are an emergency)

• • Consult with leaseholders before letting long term qualifying contracts

• Enforce the terms of the lease

As the homeowner, you have a number of responsibilities. These are to:

• • Pay service charges

• • Maintain the property

• • Gain written consent from the landlord before undertaking structural alterations

• • Give the landlord’s operatives consent to inspect the property

• • Not cause a nuisance

• Comply with houses in multiple occupation requirements if the property is wholly sub-let.

Southwark council have retained a number of direct responsibilities. These include:

• Procurement of Building Insurance
• Run District Heating (on relevant estates)
• Administer Estates electricity (from 01.04.09)
• Monitor service standards for responsibilities that are delegated to the JMB
• Management of Service Charge Loans
• Legal Enforcement of the Lease/Deed of Covenant
• Enfranchisement
• Right to Buy
• Alterations, Adaptations and Variances
• Home owner Gas Serving

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/home-owners-services

Certain responsibilities are delegated from the landlord to the JMB in a Management Agreement. The JMB is called the “managing agent”.

Our constitution says that the JMB operates for the benefit of members (no distinction between homeowners and tenants).

Currently 3 of our 10 elected directors are leaseholders. This reflects the balance between leaseholders and tenants on our estates.

As well as the Estate Management, Leathermarket JMB now directly provide various homeowner services. These include:

• Service Charge Construction
• Service Charge billing
• Service Charge collection
• S20 and S20B consultation
• Pre-assignment and Re-Mortgage enquiries
• Notices of Assignment and Charge

Generally, home owners contribute to any communal block or estate works paid for by the JMB and the council by way of service charges. Examples of services charges:

• Block/Estate Cleaning
• Block/ Estate Cleaning
• Block/ Estate Grounds Maintenance
• Heating & Hot Water
• Lifts
• Door Entry System
• Building Insurance
• Ground Rent
• Major Works

The lease allows for any reasonable method to be used for the apportionment of service charges and therefore some services are calculated per dwelling rather than on the bed-weighting method. An example of this would be Building Insurance and Front Entrance Door repairs.

Major works contracts may include work to the inside of tenanted dwellings, and where this is the case, the cost of these works is excluded from the major works service charge.

The calculation of most annual service charge headings are based on a ‘weighting’ method. This assumes that each property has four basic rooms – bathroom and toilet, kitchen, living room and hallway. We then add the number of bedrooms to come to a number of units for each property.

For example a one-bedroom property consists of five units, whilst a three bedroom property has seven ‘units’. Next, we total the number of units in the block – so a block with 5 two-bedroom and 5 three-bedroom properties would total 65 units – and divide this total into the cost of providing the services. This gives us the unit cost.

Finally, the unit cost is multiplied by the number of units for each individual property in order to reach the charge for that property. Consequently, the larger the property the higher the charge.

Home owners are required to pay a fair proportion of the cost of managing and maintaining their estate and the services the JMB and the council provide. Each years’ annual service charges are estimated based on the last financial year, which runs from the 1^st April – 31^st March. Estimated service charges are notified and invoiced in the February/March and the payment is due quarterly in advance starting 1st April.

Major Works estimated service charges are based on the contractual tender received and the JMB invoice these separately in order to facilitate various payment options outside of the terms of the lease (if applicable).

For annual service charges, every autumn the JMB calculates how much was actually spent providing services to your property and/or estate in the preceding financial year.  Major works service charges are calculated based on the actual amount spent on the contract. If the amount is higher than estimated, you will be invoiced accordingly and must pay the difference within one month. If the amount is lower, the credit will be applied to your service charge account immediately

Major Works comprise large items of work, such as repairs, refurbishment, replacement or renewals to the exterior and communal elements/services of the block and/or estate.

Where costs are expected to be higher than £250 per dwelling for an individual contract of works, there is a statutory consultation process where the JMB must notify both it’s intent and proposal to the affected leaseholders who will be expected to contribute by way of service charges. The consultation process is S20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (as amended) and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.

Major Works contracts are usually on site and/or have a defects period which last more than 18 months. Therefore, the JMB must notify leaseholders of costs incurred every 18 months until actualisation of the Major Works service charge in accordance with S20B of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (as amended).

If you are having problems paying your service charges, please contact the JMB immediately to discuss your situation and review your options.

If you are not happy with a service you are receiving from the JMB you should contact us so we can put it right.

If the problem goes on longer than is reasonable you should record a complaint in a letter or e-mail. JMB staff should answer/ acknowledge the complaint.

If you don’t think you should be paying for a service because you didn’t receive it or the standard was not good enough you may want to ask for a rebate of some of your service charge. As the actual service charge bills are sent out a year after the close of the financial year the service was received then rebate request may relate to what was going on almost two years ago.

The only way to decide whether a rebate is reasonable is to review written records from that time, so we can only consider rebates if we received a formal complain about the service at the time.