Freeholder forcing me to pay towards a new for roof?

@judith – there is no mention that this is a landlord, seems likely to be an owner-occupier

Reply to the comment left by Puzzler at 08/06/2024 – 17:01
The penultimate paragraph spells it out. ‘paying tax on income’.

Reply to the comment left by Puzzler at 08/06/2024 – 17:01
“By the time I have paid the mortgage on the flat, service charge and tax on the income I hardly make much”

If it’s a long residential lease then it belongs to the leaseholder whose proprietorship title to the lease is registered at HMLR.
In this case the owner is living in her flat as owner occupier.
She pays service charge only due under the provisions of her lease for which she paid a premium and the lease is the asset on which her mortgage is secured.
So does the lease cover the roof ? What does the wording of the lease say?
It is usually a repair obligation on the freeholder. BUT if the leaseholder holds a registered share in the management company which holds the freehold interest then she has another separate role as joint freeholder and she with other joint freeholders will be liable for structural repairs.

Reply to the comment left by Kizzie at 09/06/2024 – 15:59
In 27 years of block management we never managed one that didn’t allow the freeholder to recover the cost of the repairs. Yes he’s responsible for making sure they get done, but it’s almost certainly set out in the lease that that cost is recoverable from the leaseholders. In this situation, where the work has to be done to protect the fabric of the building it’s quite likely they’ll approach the mortgagee to ask them to pay and add the money to the flat owner’s mortgage (there’s generally also an admin charge to the customer for that) as a breach of lease is a serious matter.

“almost certainly written in the lease”.
Almost certainly not.
It appears to be exploitation of leaseholder lack of understanding of property law. That a leaseholder pays a premium to purchase the lease to a flat. The lease is a legally binding on the parties to it and the freeholder is not party to the contract. The parties are the landlord or lessor to whom the service charges are paid and the lessee or tenant.
Service charge is leaseholders money to be held in a section 42 trust account and only used for the costs written in the lease.

Reply to the comment left by Kizzie at 10/06/2024 – 21:30Landlord and Freeholder are interchangable terms in this situation. Landlord = land owner. Why would the Freeholder, who usually only benefits from the Ground Rent income and occasional lease extension fees commit themselves to pay for things like roof renewals? Leaseholders collectively pay for the maintenance of the building via their service charges, in accordance with their lease.

‘Landlord’ is not the landowner. The landowner holds the freehold title to the land and grants the leases the right to occupy a flat or house providing the purchaser of the lease complies with the T&Cs written in the lease. Service charge only payable under the provisions in the lease. Mortgages are secured on the lease which is an asset registered at HMLR because the lease in its own right has a financial value. The term landlord is a legal term under Landlord &Tenant Act 1985 /1987 and CLRA 2002 which governs the collection of service charges under long residential leases.
This doesn’t apply to rental agreements with a landlord as owner of a property.

Reply to the comment left by Kizzie at 11/06/2024 – 12:24
https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property#:~:text=You'll%20have%20a%20legal,lease%20comes%20to%20an%20end.