Landlord and Managing agent problems, and forming your own right to manage.

We have had a problem with overcharging by our managing agent, who has been appointed by the landlord to manage our property. They had charged us for work they hadn't done, and the work they had was sub standard. I took photos as evidence, kept all emails and mail, and then contacted the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) -

http://www.rpts.gov.uk/about_us/lvt.htm

I lodged a complaint with them then filled out the necessary forms to dispute the "reasonableness of service charges". I had to do a lot of paperwork and get all my evidence together, but we won, and had a lot of the charges refunded. The problem was that the managing agent would remain our managing agent, so to get rid of them we decided to form our own company and forcibly remove their control. This is called right to manage. You can either put 'right to manage' into a search engine or go to the people we used, the Leasehold Advice Centre-

http://www.leaseholdadvicecentre.co.uk/?gclid=CLfVhP3-tpkCFQiF3godLCuP4w

They do everything for about £1200, but if you can understand all the legal jargon and be bothered with all the paperwork, you can probably get it all done for a few hundred pounds.