Service Charge

Watsons will send you regular invoices for the service charge. This covers the cost of providing maintenance and repairs, insurance of the building, provision of concierge service, lifts, lighting heating and cleaning of communal areas, waste disposal, window cleaning, car parking, bike storage, CCTV, intercom, etc. Volunteer gardeners currently maintain outdoor spaces within our demise, but we pay for plants and materials (compost etc) as requested by them, up to a budget limit.

Ground Rent

This is a payment to the freeholder and is collected on their behalf by Watson.

Shared Estate Charge

The shared estate includes the Peace Park, the estate access roads and paving, the car park on the other side of the road, planting and garden maintenance on the shared land, including Peace Park maintenance, estate lighting and so on. The Chocolate Works development to the north is quite separate.

The shared estate freeholder is still currently Henry Boot Developments, although this will eventually change as they finally withdraw from the site altogether. They have appointed Complete Property Management (CPM) to deal with shared estate management.  They estimate total costs, and then apportion them to the ‘shareholders’ according to percentage of the whole site area occupied.  These charges are then allocated to our leaseholders in the same proportion as the normal service charge, based on size of apartment.  Watson do this apportioning and collect our share of the shared estate charges on behalf of CPM.

The shareholders in the shared estate are us, Brainkind, Stanley Harrison’s offices, the Care Home,  the Clock Tower and the Liquor Store. Chocolate Works residents do not contribute to the costs.  The split is as below, with ours in bold: