Paying the price

After a recent re-mortgage, I served notice of mortgage on a property management company, together with the fee of 1.05 reserved by my client's lease.Four chasing letters and six weeks' later, I received a reply asking me for 44.06 in respect of an administration fee for receipting and returning my notice.As Adrian Kirsten stated in his article (see [1999] Gazette, 38, 17 February) attempts such as this to charge an administration fee amount to nothing more than a "try-on" and should be resisted.Unfortunately, the companies that hold themselves out as "ground rent specialists" continually refuse to accept the law and continue to try to exploit tenants.

The unfortunate involvement of these companies in the conveyancing process simply leads to infuriating delays at the end of transactions and involves practitioners in enormous amounts of wasted time in chasing receipted notices, arguing the point over 'administration fees' and accounting to mortgage lenders regarding their inability to supply a complete set of title deeds.

There must also be countless tenants around the country who are unwittingly paying administration fees which these companies are not entitled to raise or which are excessive in respect of such matters as approving insurance policies, supplying copy ground rent receipts and supplying copy leases.Alan Simpson, Davies Wallis Foyster, Liverpool