Thames Balcony was anger when the residents rise and exposed to unpredictable fees

As early as 1985, when Abel Ducloux bought his apartment on the river bank in the narrow street, Limehouse was a hardly developed borderland. They had to travel miles for a gastropub or a frothy coffee, but Abel liked the calm, the industrial mood, and he enjoyed the open view along the constantly changing river, which he could enjoy from his balcony. “There was no Canary Wharf,” he said.

Among the endless documents associated with the purchase of a flat abel, it was informed that he would need a license for his balcony and that the port of the London authority (PLA), which manages a 95 -mile route from the river from Teddington to the coast, would charge a pepper grain sum every year. “I didn’t even look at the text,” he said.

If he had bothered to read it, he would have noticed some alarming clauses. “The PLA can revoke my license without explanation,” he said. “You can ask me to remove my balcony. If I don’t do it, you can do it for me and charge me. It lets my blood cook.”

The management of the river by the PLA is, thanks to a current three -week public examination of the plans to rewrite the legislation that rewritten the way he manages the river. Balcony costs are a particularly annoyed topic, although it turned out that the residents also have to pay for everything, from rainwater congressions under their buildings and into the river and decommissioned original cranes on old storage buildings.

When Abel moved to Limouse for the first time, his annual fee was £ 50. Today it is £ 254 – not an inadequate increase after 40 years. What worries him is the future. In his building, the person living above pays £ 1,200pa. The apartment on the top floor is calculated £ 3,200.

The reason for the anomaly is that a new license is negotiated when a property is sold and fees have a tendency to shoot up. “The PLA publishes what they calculate for river work licenses – and the fees are everywhere,” said Abel.

At 80, Abel is now withdrawn from his career as a banker and lives in Devon. The apartment is rented out and if its fees suddenly skyrocketed, it would inevitably make its rent. Likewise, if he wants to sell the apartment, he fears that he has difficulty getting a new owner to agree to the conditions of the PLA. “They should be a public body, but they are a few bandits,” he said.

Houses with direct river views have traditionally been among the most sought -after in London. The buyers pay strong bonuses to observe how the tides rise and traps and sunlight reflects over the water.

In a report recently reported by real estate consultants Cluttons showed that River View Homes in district is 93 percent more expensive than nearby, but in the interior. On the 27 -mile flow between Teddington Lock and the Royal Docks, Savills reports that buyers pay an average of 19.5 percent more to live on the river within 100 m, compared to houses up to 1 km away.

And while we can all appreciate the joys of looking at open water in the middle of a busy city, there is a stab in the tail.

James Haan bought his warehouse in Wapping in 1996. The property is Oliver’s Wharf is a former tea warehouse and was the first building in the area to be converted into apartments in the 1970s.

When James moved into the building, it was not calculated for balconies, but in about 2008 his former administrative company signed a license agreement with the PLA. At that time, the annual costs were around £ 4,000, which was divided between 23 houses less than £ 200 per year and the employee fees of the residents.

In 2016, James 64, a former investment banker who had set up his own telecommunications company, was ready to take on the task of the volunteer construction manager and was horrified when he received a letter from the PLA in which he stated that he increased the indictment by 60 to 70 percent.

“I asked for an explanation,” said James. “I was told that they were entitled to check the prices, and they wanted to calculate that on the grounds that other people pay this amount.”

Hesitation to let the matters, the James lies, commissioned the report of a consultant who brought up the fact that the residents had actually overpaid their fees for years because the place through which their balconies were overestimated over the river had been overestimated. The PLA refused to return the money and said that measuring the balconies was its responsibility even though it was ready to reduce its future invoices.

It would not put itself on the approved prices. James was offered the opportunity to bring the matter to the arbitration process, but it was believed that it was an estimated price of £ 70,000 and without a clear idea of ​​what could be – unfair to ask his neighbors to spend thousands of pounds for the process. “It is a way to harass people to submit,” said James. “They are totally pork and they are not responsible for this airspace. The only access is through our apartments, so there is no justification for it.”

This year, the invoice for Olivers Wharf £ £ 13,000 – or around £ 565 per apartment – and James’ is important that it has risen almost 10 percent a year in the past ten years. “If things go on for another 20 years, we pay 60,000 pounds,” he said.

In order to increase the injuries, Oliver’s Wharf is also charged with the freight of ships to the building for the original cranes on his roof. Nowadays they are purely decorative and do not overlap the river, but – on the basis that they can be swung across the water – a fee is charged.

Matthew Parris, the former MP, who became a journalist and broadcaster, is not a man with whom you can put on. When the PLA increased the license fee for its apartment in Limehouse “in sudden jumps and bands” in the early 2000s, the 75-year-old would not stand for it.

“I threatened them to bring them to judicial review and they gave me a 999-year lease for around £ 3,000,” he said. “I pay about £ 11 a year.” The problem is that from case to case you do things on a case base and try to extract as much as possible from people by saying: Oh, that’s the point of view. “

One of the things that make the PLA more angry is the different treatment that different owners are offered, and the way the bills seemed to rise as quickly and unexpectedly as the flood.

Simon Anthony moved to a converted warehouse apartment on the Isle of Dogs in 2003.

It was not until 2022. Simon, 60, a retired auditor, returned home after a long trip to determine that his managing director – without informing the owner – signed a license agreement with PLA and paid him £ 20,000 of balcony fees. The alternative, he was told, consisted of paying a flat fee of £ 250,000 for a long lease.

“In fact, they come out of the blue and say that they owe us a quarter of a million pounds,” he said. “It is a great abuse of power.”

Simon was outraged, not only by the size of the invoice, but also due to the lack of communication and the injustice of the entire setup. Legal, he said, all 30 owners in his building have to share the costs for the PLA bill, although only 10 of them actually have balconies.

Simon complained long and hard and finally the PLA paid back the £ 20,000 – on the grounds that the managing director was not authorized to make the payment without informing the owners – but a legal proceedings have now started against the owner of his building. This case continues.

Simon spent three years to dig out the entire issue of PLA licenses, and discovered that it is not just balconies that are created. The residents have to pay when rainwater mutants in their buildings let the river flow into the river and for structures such as mashed rings, cranes and cars.

Matthew and James agree that the solution for all of this is much more transparency from the PLA. The fees should be published and a tariff card for future fees created by an independent expert committee that can only be increased by the inflation rate every year.

“At the moment they behave like highways,” said Matthew.

On Friday, the PLA published an explanation on its website that it will be appointed an independent surveyor in response to the protests of residents to report on the current fees for the fees and level for future fees. Rental tests for the currently licensed balconies of 200 – at an average price of 1,140 GBP per year are carried out to this work.

“The fees for individual balconies vary for a number of reasons, including their size, where they are and how a market value check was carried out recently,” said a spokesman. “We undertake a fair and reasonable approach.”