• I AM a low-earning owner-occupier leaseholder of a flat I bought in the 1970s.

It is one in a block of flats in which, by now, a substantial portion of leaseholders are professional property people letting their flats (and possibly negotiating their own terms with managements).

I am being squeezed out by what I regard as unfair/unreasonable charges from the managing agents/freeholder. Although between March 2014 and July 2016 I paid more than £24,000 to successive managements, right now I am threatened with court action for some £6,000 and there will be further demands in June.

In spite of such large sums, many problems are outstanding. For instance, my windows have not been painted from the outside by the landlords (as required by my lease) for several decades, hence they have rotted away.

Our communal staircase was declared a health and safety hazard by Camden Council 10 years ago but remains in unaltered (that is, in further deteriorating) condition. Substantial monies were collected for the repair of the staircase during the previous management, but – according to my understanding – they were spent elsewhere, possibly on “professional and legal fees”.

Although I was flooded several times through the roof, and had also other damages through incompetent builders employed by the landlords, subsequent managements consistently refused to send out insurance people to assess any of the damages (which are still here for all to see).

Can managing agents/landlords keep on increasing their service charges as much as they like? Can managing agents/landlords collect monies for specific repair purposes but than spend the monies on, for instance, “professional and legal fees” and then, with change of management, demand monies again for the original purpose?

Can an owner-occupier leaseholder demand transparency as to who is charged what? I can’t help thinking that I may be overcharged for reasons of owner-occupier cleansing. Our managing agents declined to tell me what charges are made to other flats in our block.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW3