Your Lease Agreement

Your lease agreement is a legal document which sets out:

• The price you bought the property for;

• What services you pay for;

• Your duties and responsibilities as a leaseholder;

• Our duties and responsibilities as 'freeholder'

Each lease is different so we recommend that you look carefully at the one for your property.

Your Responsibilities

These usually include:

• Paying repairs invoices, service charges and ground rent on time;

• Maintaining and repairing all internal parts of our property including fixtures and fittings;

• Allowing our contractors access to the property to carry out repairs;

• Getting our written permission before carrying out an structural changes or improvements;

• Not keeping a dog, cat or any other animal if your lease prohibits it;

• Being considerate of neighbours and not disturbing them or causing a nuisance;

• Repaying the discount on the price of our property (where applicable) when you sell;

• Leaving your property when your lease ends.

Sub-letting

You are free to rent your property to someone else or have a lodger if you are a leaseholder.

You must tell us your address if you are not living in the property so that we can contact you about anything to do with the lease.

You are still responsible for keeping the terms of your lease and paying service charges. You are also responsible for the behaviour of our tenants while they are renting the property.

Our responsibilities to you

These vary according to the property and the details of the lease.

We are usually responsible for;

• Maintaining and repairing the communal and external areas;

• Insuring the building - this does not include your belongings and we strongly recommend you take out your own home contents insurance.

• Keeping accounts of our service charges which pay for repairs, maintenance and buildings insurance and giving you an annual statement of these accounts.

Service Charges

You are responsible for a proportion of the cost of maintaining the communal areas in your block or building. This will be described in detail in your lease including when you have to pay service charges.

Charges usually cover:

• The cost of insuring the building;

• Communal internal and external lighting;

• Repairs to communal areas;

• Cleaning communal areas;

• Maintaining door entry systems;

• Cleaning services;

• Administration and management fees;

• Fire alarm systems and fire fighting equipment, where present;

• Audit fees.

Service charges are estimated in advance of each financial year and sent in you in February or March beforehand. The actual costs are calculated and sent to you about 6 months after the financial year has ended.

If the cost of services has been more than the estimate we will debit your account. If the cost is less we will credit your account.