Under Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (as amended by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002), we must consult with you about any major ‘Qualifying Works’ or ‘Qualifying Long-Term Agreements’. This is a lengthy procedure.
Qualifying Works
These are major repairs or improvements that cost more than £250 for each leaseholder, e.g. external decoration of a block of 25 flats at a cost of more than £6,250 (25 x £250).
Qualifying Long-Term Agreements
These are long-term contracts for more than 12 months where the cost to any leaseholder will be more than £100 each year, e.g. a cleaning contract in a block of 25 flats at a cost of more than £2,500 each year.
Consultation on Qualifying Works
If we have to consult with you and any recognised Residents Association about Qualifying Works we will send a notice (called a Notice of Intention) to your home address. If you have sub-let your flat with permission we will write to you at your correspondence address. We will describe the planned work and our reasons for deciding that it is necessary. If we can’t send general details of the work with the notice we will tell you where and when you can see the details. We will invite you to let us have your comments. We will give you 30 days to respond.
We will consider any comments which you make about the works. Under certain circumstances you may be able to nominate a contractor that you would like us to consider.
If you or other residents or the Residents Association nominate a contractor we will include them in the list of contractors we ask to give us an estimate. If any nominated contractor is not already on our approved list of contractors they will have to satisfy us that they meet our criteria for inclusion on the approved list. If more than one contractor is nominated by the residents we will choose the one who received the most nominations. The Notice will tell you if you are or are not able to nominate a contractor.
Once we have received the estimates we will write to you again (this is called a Paragraph B Statement) giving you the estimated costs of the work, listing the observations we received to our first notice and our response to those observations. We will tell you where and when you can look at the estimates.
We will give you 30 days to comment on the estimates.
We will then enter into a contract for the work. Unless we award the contract to the contractor who submitted the lowest tender, or to a contractor nominated by a resident or the Residents Association, we will write to you within 21 days giving our reasons for awarding the contract and summarising the observations we received about the estimates, and our response to them.
