Firstport estate charges surge at Chatham estate

Residents say they don't have a detailed breakdown of where the money is going.   Oliver Leader de Saxe reports.

Transcript

00:00Rotting balconies, rusted wash lines, overgrown trees, this is the experience for 19 flats here

00:08on Armada Way, who as a collective paid tens of thousands of pounds in maintenance charges

00:14to estate management company First Port. Okay this area here, please be careful if you come

00:21in because the roots are coming out down the bottom there and you could easily trip,

00:26a bit of health and safety issue there. Bill Rice has lived on Armada Way for three decades

00:33and has seen these estate charges go up dramatically, rising from £30,000 to £41,000

00:42over the last three years. But despite the fact he forks out around £2,000 a year

00:49on keeping the estate in shape, he doesn't know a detailed breakdown of where the money is going

00:56or how much is being spent to tackle his concerns. I feel ripped off and so do the rest of the

01:03residents. We wouldn't have had to pay the £2,000 if the estate had been managed properly from day

01:09one. We don't know how much we'd be in charge for guttering as opposed to what we'd be in charge for

01:16say for example, fixing an electricity box. So there is no oversight into what our money is being

01:24spent on. First Port have been approached for comment. This isn't an isolated case. First Port

01:32manages 300,000 properties across the UK and dozens of MPs wrote to the company last year

01:41over what they described as rip-off fees. Now the Labour MP for Dartford is going further,

01:48calling for a fully accountable process to better protect those living on estates like Armada Way.

01:56To have a much tighter legal framework, we'll be in that legislation and we'll be able to use that

02:01going forward to make sure First Port perform better. And personally, one change that I think

02:06would be really important that I'm really pressing for is an ombudsman who can adjudicate where the

02:12managing agents have done their job and where they haven't, ensure that restitution is made

02:18for the resident who's been affected by that. But that may be cold comfort

02:22for those who already feel exploited. Oliver, Leader of the SACs for KMTV in Chatham.