Top floor flat landlord says no ‘sink’ fund for roof.

karmalady, a landlord may also be the freeholder. I know personally of one such - a property comprising 2 maisonettes, owns one, is FHolder of both.

The Lease will say a lot Mokryna. It will contain all the necessary provisions about maintenance and repair of the property and your responsibilities to contribute to the costs. Are you sure you have read the actual Lease and not just the Land Registry register of your title? Leases are lengthy documents.

When we were helping my daughter to buy her first flat we pulled out of two purchases for just this reason.
In the first one the leaseholders in some of the flats could barely keep their heads above water and they had never paid any sort of service charge or into any sinking fund. The roof costs were coming out at over 12K per flat and most of them had already said they couldn't pay. The lease was very basic, it just said that leaseholders should share the cost of essenial repairs. I don't think that the flat was sold at all as nobody in the building was responsible for repairs or maintenance and nobody was going to take legal action to get the money from leaseholders.
In the second there was no sinking fund because the seller had started the management company just before he put the flat on the market. Effectively the management company would cease to exist when he sold the flat, and the responsibility of maintenance given in the lease was very sketchy.
In both these properties any work had to be done on an Ad Hoc basis, so no decorating had been done outside or in the shared internal spaces.

Witzend

*karmalady*, a landlord may also be the freeholder. I know personally of one such - a property comprising 2 maisonettes, owns one, is FHolder of both.

yes of course that is correct. We used to be leaseholders within 43 properties and my husband and two others did all the donkey work in buying the freehold so that every property acquired an equal share. Some of them were landlords and they rented their properties out when they were still leaseholders and also after they became a freeholder

Leases need to be watertight as there are always people who will try and duck out of paying management charges. These charges accumulate with interest and thence need to be fully paid if the property is ever sold and it comes out before the seller gets anything. It is also very important that a sinking fund is maintained to a good level, bearing in mind potential costs such as lift maintenance, common area maintenance etc

Lease paperwork is complicated and lengthy with a lot of small print, detailed in the covenants

Maggierose

Wouldn’t it be the freeholder’s responsibility?

It is !

As others have said Leasehold services charge provisions will be set out in the lease and in England and Wales obligations codified in the landlord and tenant act 1985. This obliges landlord to get quotes and most modern leases allow for services charges to be demanded in advanced and estimates reconciled at the end of each service charge year. Not all leases allow for a sinking fund, but most do . Ask to see the quotes and the last 3 years service charge accounts. Provided the landlord follows correct procedure the all the leaseholders will have to pay to the extent the charges are reasonably reasonably and properly incurred (and might need to take out a loan if they haven't got the money) and the landlord will have rights to recover. The residential leaseholders have a right to dispute the service charge via a tribunal. The process is summarised on the Shelter site and the lease advisory service site.