Owner Occupiers

Owning & living in Garden Mews.

Owning and living in Garden Mews means you are invested in the community and how our residential property is managed on a daily basis. This page is tailored to you.

How your service charge is spent?

Owner occupiers and landlords pay an annual service charge, collected in two instalments. There are two bands of service charge depending on whether your property is an apartment or a penthouse.

If you are not good with numbers or simply want a more transparent way to understand how your service charge is allocated, this chart should help.

As you can see above, by far the highest proportion of your service charge is spent on keeping and maintaining the extensive trees and gardens. Whilst 18% is accrued on an annual basis to deliver internal and external make-overs which happens every few years. This includes external painting and renewing communal carpets.

Are we sticking to the budget?

The figures below are for the year ending December 2021. These numbers are abbreviated numbers from the Service Charge Statement of Accounts.

Are you getting good value for money?

What’s your opinion? Enter the poll to the right of this page.

6 FACTS to know about your leasehold

• The Freeholder is Hicks Development, a local developer. They also developed Cox Hollow, just around the corner from Garden Mews.
• Any changes to windows must be in keeping with the original design and consent from the Landlord but first be obtained via the Management.
• It is a condition of the lease that the internal communal areas are redecorated every seven years. The lease also states that the exterior parts of the building should be redecorated every five years to maintain them to an appropriate standard.
• It is a condition of the lease that all exterior facing glass surfaces in the window should be cleaned at least once every two months. This is why window cleaning is an estate expenditure funded from the annual service charge.
• Like to sing? There is a specific clause against singing being practised if it causes annoyance to the occupiers of the other apartments.
• Would you like a furry friend for company? You’ll need written permission to keep an animal, reptile or bird. However, the good news is the lease states ‘permission will not be unreasonably withheld and there are several precedents already in existence. Email Chaneys if permission is required.

Important Information:

Garden Mews facilities:

• Huge communal garden
• On-site car parking
• Visitor car parking
• Bike shed
• Secure communal garden
• CCTV cameras

Poll