Homeowners on a Merseyside estate are in ‘despair’ after being charged £1,400 to use their own parking spaces.
People living in the neighbourhood in the town of Halewood used to pay around £300 per year to maintain their parking spaces.
They are now being forced to find more than four times as much money for the car park’s upkeep – and it is pushing many homeowners to the brink.
Graham Perrins, 58, who lives on Tavington Road, told the BBC he is considering selling: ‘It drives me to despair because I don’t know what bill I’m going to expect each year.
‘I don’t know what I’m actually paying for and I can’t get hold of anyone to explain properly.’
The parking spaces for Tavington Road and the nearby street Applewood Grove are leased from property management and maintenance company FirstPort – but the homes are freehold.
The Hampshire-based firm said some ‘additional fees were mistakenly charged’ – but the Merseyside homeowners were sceptical about whether they would be reimbursed with ‘credit notes’ as the company claimed.
Homeowner Greg Morgan, 39, said: ‘We’ve all asked repeatedly for copies of the audited accounts to see what the money is being spent on and we keep getting fobbed off.’
Like Mr Perrins, Mr Morgan said many on these two Halewood streets are considering selling.
Linda Eccleston, a near 20-year resident of Tavington Road, is among those who just want to know why the fees have ballooned so much.
She has asked the site manager several times to meet her to discuss it – but he is nowhere to be seen.
Fed up with the situation, those living on Tavington Road and Applewood Grove are now looking into whether they could buy the car park and run it themselves.
On top of the enormous car park maintenance charges, locals are regularly billed for even more fees too.
Scott Traynor, 48, has to pay £370 per year for the privilege of accessing his own driveway – because he has to pass down a 100 feet service road to reach it.
This cost has increased in the last roughly 20 years – he used to pay £250 per year in 2007.
People living in the freehold homes have also received letters billing them for costs linked to a nearby block of flats, Applewood Court.
They were asked to foot the bill for cleaning the block, maintaining its gates and fire safety equipment and insuring it against terrorism.
With homeowners also reminded not to leave bikes in the hall – evidently a matter for a block of flats – many of them believe the freehold homes and leasehold flats are being treated as one development, when they are not.
Mr Traynor said when he and fellow homeowners ask FirstPort for details about all these extra charges piling up, the company just talk about the separate Applewood Court instead.
A spokesperson for FirstPort said the company managed the houses and flats as a single development.
But homeowners are only charged for ‘general maintenance and insurance’ of the estate including its car park, the spokesperson said – and not for costs linked to the flats.
They added that homeowners had been charged more in the last few years because of rises in property insurance.
As prices come down, though, people can expect to be charged less on their invoice for the year ending March 2025, the FirstPort spokesperson said.
They explained homeowners were charged much larger fees last year because of ‘human error’: ‘This was an isolated occurrence which is now being rectified.’