Frequently Asked Questions

We try and help residents take the necessary steps to protect themselves against anti-social behaviour. If you experience any problems of this nature, you should act immediately by contacting your local neighbourhood policing team to report anti-social behaviour. Other agencies such as environmental health can also help residents with these matters.

Unfortunately, Kingston can’t do much to solve this issue. But in the first instance, we always ask residents to try and resolve any issues with their neighbours directly. If the problem carries on, please contact your local authority’s environmental health officer.

You can also find more ways to deal with the problem with help and advice from The Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA).

For legal reasons (subject to the terms of your lease), it’s important that Kingston knows of all sales and purchases. If you’re in the process of selling or purchasing a property managed by Kingston, please contact us so we can advise you further.

You’ll find your allocated parking bay in the plan, which was given to you alongside your lease when you purchased your property. If you don’t have a copy, please contact us and we may be able to provide a copy. If not, you’ll need to refer back to the developer of your property.

Unfortunately, Kingston cannot do this and you should always contact your local authority. Items reported by Kingston require a contractor and will be billed through the service charge. Costs can be passed back to individuals if they don’t make their own arrangements.

The service charge budget is primarily for the day-to-day costs of managing your property. However, a reserve or sinking fund contribution is usually made each year to steadily build up a fund for future, unexpected or major works. The costs of major works will need to be shared out and charged as a separate, additional item if there aren’t enough funds available.

Under the terms of your lease, you’re usually responsible for contributing to the cost of the buildings insurance. If buildings insurance is paid through the service charge, you don’t need to arrange separate buildings insurance yourself. However, you’ll still need to arrange separate contents insurance for your property.

To make a claim on your buildings insurance, you’ll need to contact your buildings insurance provider directly. If you’re not sure who provides your buildings insurance policy, please contact us.

If you don’t pay charges on time, which are allocated to you under the terms of your lease, we’ll need to take steps to legally recover the outstanding debt. If you have a query or payment difficulties, please contact us (link to contact page) as soon as possible.

If you’re changing your correspondence/billing address, please contact us in writing so we can amend our records. If you don’t tell us you’ve changed your address, we won’t be able to send your service charge invoices to the correct address or let you know of any important issues at your development.

Leaseholders may need to pay ground rent to the freehold owner of their property depending on the terms of their lease. Ground rent is sometimes collected on behalf of the freeholder by Kingston and is separate to any other charges that are used for the management of your development.

This is to cover the cost of services that are in the terms of your lease. This can include window cleaning, gardening, communal electricity, minor repairs, buildings insurance, agent management and accountancy fees. For a more detailed explanation, please refer to your annual service charge budget, which is issued each year by your Property Manager.

Our offices are open Monday to Friday between 8.45am and 5.00pm. We also have an emergency out-of-hours service that runs after 5.00pm and on weekends. This service is for urgent communal repairs and health and safety issues only.

• By making an online payment
• By monthly direct debit (contact us to find out more)
• By cheque made payable to Kingston (with agreement reference on the back)
• By debit/credit card by phone or in person at our office

Please note: if your bank returns a direct debit payment or an unpaid cheque an administration fee will be debited to your account and the facility may be withdrawn if missed payments are not covered. Payment will then need to be met according to the terms of your lease/TP1.