Raising the roof

Roof repair charges put forward by Westminster City Council-owned City- West Homes to the lessees of two residential blocks in Marylebone have been branded “astronomically high” by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT). The lessees formed an action group to fight the charges proposed by City- West Homes which it says amounted to £418 to tarmac each sq metre of the roof—compared to a private contractor’s quoted costs of around £100 per sq metre. The tribunal ruled that the costs of the work were unreasonable, that it was unnecessary to carry out the works on this scale, and that they should have carried out the smaller scale repairs suggested by the lessees’ expert surveyor.