Private Street Maintenance

[caz21]

We bought our house on a new build estate three years ago, when we signed the mortgage we were informed we would have to pay a fee every year to a maintenance company to look after the street, anyway, the street has only recently been completed and we have had our first invoice for £70 to cover us until Dec 12, There are 38 houses at a cost of £10000 per year which includes their legal fees/admin/bank charges/H&S,accountancy (not much in the way of maintenance) and an "estate sinking fund" I know we agreed to pay but can anyone offer some advise as to:
A) why the street would be private and not covered by the council. (sorry if this seems a silly question i genuinely dont know)
B) Would we get some kind of council tax rebate?
C) Can the street get togther and inform the Management company we do not require their services?
D) Is it right that almost £3k is made up of their office fees?

Thanks in advance.

[boxtops]

this might help www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN00402.pdf

[boxtops]

^ sorry it's a document not a link, you need to paste that into your browser then select "open"

[bookbinder]

Ask your local authority if they are prepared to 'adopt' your street. If they say 'yes', find out what other residents think about that happening. If most of them are in favour of that, you can tell the management company that their services are no longer required.

[MoonRocker]

A) You should work towards getting the council to adopt the street, this may require work to bring it to adoptable standard. As long as it doesn't cost a fortune most should, if they have any sense, be in favour of adoption
B) No
C) Yes
D) they have costs I suppose they'd argue it's fair.

[dzug2]

A The building company either didn't construct the road to a sufficient standard or 'forgot' to bring the building inspector in at the right stage to confirm that it was.

B No - though if a property is borderline as to council tax band the arguably lower value of the property because of an unadopted road might just swing it
C You might be able to run your own management company. I'm not sure I'd relish being on the organising end of that with 38 properties

D Quite likely. The overheads of running a company are high even before you start to provide any actual services