Our house in a small housing estate has a property factor. They are responsible for common maintenance such as cutting communal grass areas, maintaining the little playpark etc.

We lived there for three years and now they want to us to pay a “float” of £100

Their explanation for this charge is

There is a requirement for all Homeowners to pay a float in order to allow our firm to manage the Development of a day to day basis. Any Homeowner who has not yet paid the float has had this added to their common charges account for payment.

It seems to me like we are being asked to stump up money to insulate their business rather than actually being charged for the work they are carrying out. Are they entitled to do this?

Don’t know about entitled, but it’s standard in my experience. It’s not unreasonable to be fair. They’re maintaining the property, paying contractors etc and it makes sense for them to be holding a balance to pay for that while they await payments from residents

(for the record I detest property factors in general, but knowing how bad most residents are at paying their bills, it’s not unrealistic for the factors to want to have a deposit)

I used to have a flat on a development of 6 flats where there was a maintenance company running the freehold etc.

We used to pay a monthly maintenance fee that covered grass mowing / hedge trimming etc, but it also involves a bit spare extra per month to build up a ‘sinking fund’, in case anything bigger came up that needed to be done.

or the record I detest property factors in general, but knowing how bad most residents are at paying their bills, it’s not unrealistic for the factors to want to have a deposit)

I detest them too, but do pay.

The float thing annoys me though, although perhaps its just my general attitude to factors that’s clouding my judgement