Estate Maintenance Fees Survey – Additional Help

Following on from this article, Helen Goodman MP is interested in hearing from affected households (originally just her constituents) about their experiences with Estate Maintenance Fees. We gave you the link to the survey however some of you would like some advice as to what to include to fill it out. Click the image below to  open the survey.

The first page is self explanatory in that you need to enter your First Name, Last Name, Email Address and Address details. You will then be asked the following:

Answer No for Is Helen Goodman your MP? Then decide if you wish to be contacted or not and how. Then click the Next button on the survey (not the image above).

Select the most applicable category that you belong to. As you can see Leaseholders can also complete this form too. Ignore the Other box if you have not selected it. Then add you postcode in.

For the questions above:

• What was the postcode of your previous address? Left this blank as this is an optional field, but if you do provide it that is at your discretion but you are indicating where you used to live. We would not recommend filling this in. We do not believe it is needed.
• Which company built your house? Answer Persimmon Homes / Charles Church (if you have one of these).
• When did you move in? Enter Month and Year you yourself moved in to the property.

Then to proceed click Next. This will now display the final page of the survey.

Select Open Spaces and Trees options as above and scroll down.

You are then asked how you would describe the maintenance standard on the estate. We recommend choosing Poor. An example would be jobs getting completed eventually. The area by Broad Lane was not cut earlier this year due to the wet weather thus the schedule of visits was not followed. If they had followed it, it would have been cut earlier and not left. Thanks to the Residents Association this was chased and we have proof it was not cut when it was claimed to have been cut to an acceptable standard.

For the breakdown of costs incurred as above, we recommend selecting Yes, costs appear within broader categories such as ‘gardening’ or ‘administration’. Comments wise, just mention how they can charge more for Administration than the actual work being done or applying a fly tipping charge billed to everyone for someone else’s careless nature!

For the final question, this will be what issues you have experienced with Greenbelt. Common issues are lack of communication, not doing work as instructed in their schedule of works (ie grass area off Astoria Drive by Broad Lane). That said, not sure many of us have even reached ‘issues when selling your home’. Greenbelt will charge us for release of the documents for a sale, basically another way to con money out of us. This is not a leasehold property, hence the term ‘fleecehold’ being banded around.

Once you are happy click Submit.