The residents’ company charges property owners a service charge in order to ensure that funds are available to meet the costs of running the company and maintaining the estate. The service charge is set on a ‘not for profit’ basis, at a level required to manage and maintain the estate properly and to ensure its safety and amenity value.

Each property owner within the residents’ company is legally obliged to pay the service charge – payment is not optional. Refusal or inability to pay service charges will result in a shortage of funds for the residents’ company to meet its obligations. Therefore, it is important that owners pay their service charges when required.

In the event that you are having difficulty paying your service charge, please contact Preim as soon as possible. We will always try to find a way of assisting you with your payment arrangements and may be able to offer an alternative method of payment.

If you fail to pay, or fail to make arrangements to pay your service charge, we will contact you to discuss payment. If following those discussions you continue to fail to pay, we will initiate our debt collection procedure which can lead to additional administration charges being added to your account. In the event that you continue to fail to pay, we will take legal action to recover the debt on behalf of your residents’ company. Please be aware that significant additional costs would be added to your account in this instance.

Yes you do. There is no discount available for vacant properties.

The obligation to pay the service charge lies with the owner of the property. Unfortunately, we are unable to speak to tenants about the service charge account unless we are given specific permission to do so by the property owner.

Your service charges go towards the upkeep and maintenance of land, infrastructure and amenities owned by your residents’ company, for a full breakdown of this please log into your residents’ area which will include budgets for the current year.

If you have any further queries regarding any aspect of the residents’ company, Preim or your home, please contact us.

Your estate has private amenity areas and/or infrastructure such as grassed areas, play areas, roads, footpaths, surface water sewers and streetlights.  This means that the local authority or utility companies are not responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the amenity areas and or infrastructure, and maintenance and upkeep needs to be undertaken and paid for by the home-owners.

The residents’ company is a means of ensuring that the maintenance and practical management of  private amenity areas and/or infrastructure is performed to an agreed standard, and these assets are owned and funded by home-owners whom make up the community. 

When you purchased your property you signed an agreement to become a shareholder or member of your resident’s company. As the property owner you are legally obliged to contribute to the residents’ company, which includes paying all service charges applicable.

If you are unsure what areas belong to your residents’ company you may log in your residents’ area where a plan of your estate can be found, as well as lots of other useful documents involving the residents’ company budgets and statutory accounts.

Where you are making external alterations to your property such as building an extension, installing a dropped kerb or constructing car parking spaces within your property curtilage, you may need to apply for and receive a licence from the residents’ company to undertake the works. This licence is to protect you and the shareholders of the residents’ company, where building works could adversely affect the existing communally owned infrastructure such as sewers, foot-ways and verges. If you do not obtain a licence, then in the event of the future sale of your property, you will encounter difficulties in obtaining a compliance certificate. Please refer to our Resident Help page for further information.

Internal alterations do not require permission from the residents’ company, unless your property is a leasehold property. In this case please refer to your lease.

Not when your property is freehold. Where your property is leasehold, some aspects of repair work may be covered and funded by your residents’ company. You should refer to your lease for full details.

There are some extra legal requirements when selling a property that is part of a residents’ company. Your solicitor will be able to advise you and deal with these.

If you discover an abandoned vehicle, please report this to your local authority who will be happy to assist in confirming whether or not the vehicle is abandoned and if it should be removed. As your managing agent, Preim have no jurisdiction in removing abandoned vehicles.

Parking is not a residents’ company issue therefore your managing agent does not provide services to manage your parking space(s).

If you are experiencing problems with somebody else parking outside of their own parking spaces (if any) we may be able to write to them to politely ask they stop doing so. Please contact your property manager.

Council Tax funds provide for many other local community facilities, such as the  police service, the fire service, education and refuse collection as well as infrastructure (such as roads) outside of the estate. Unfortunately, there is no rebate against Council Tax as a result of paying a residents’ company service charge.