Yes I understand that they could pass the overdue payment to a debt collection agency but my point was that surely before attempting to add 'collection agent fees' they must give reasonable notice before doing so? Even if they had of decided to give notice, they of course would have sent it to the wrong address and not my home address which was registered with them!

Thanks Andydd, They certainly try it on; that was my point they had somehow reverted back to sending the ground rent demands to the property address and not my home address to which they had communicated to me via when they (Dorchester) took over the management of the collections 18 months or so ago. As I said, they also did not send me notice that they would send the debt to a collection agency. What was interesting was that despite me writing to Dorchester they would not communicate with me, and PDC ignored the fact that Dorchester got it wrong and said their client would not accept my points raised! It was not until I would not accept their offer of a discounted fee and told them I was happy to go to court that they caved in! I had many sleepless nights during the 7 or so weeks of harassment but I glad I stood my ground. Now I have a fight with E-on Energy who say the apartment used 7 units of electric during tenants and when they add their fees they are claiming £98.00. I don't have an account/contract with E-on but they say I do because they opened on! I have asked E-on Energy what legal statute have they used to open this account in my name but they continue to side step the question.... I have also reminded them that when we went through the same process 18 months ago they zeroed the account and closed it.

Interesting they added 58.75 to your amount, they tried adding 120 to my 175.00 bill but I was having none of it! see my post PDC Ltd

I wanted to share this with others in case they are experiencing similar bully tactics: PDC Ltd have been perusing me aggressively for about 7 weeks, they would not accept that the Landlords Agents (their employer) had not sent me proper notice that my overdue ground rent (2 X 6 months at 87.50) was overdue. I claimed that they had not sent the two invoices or any overdue notice to the correct address and I had to send them copy letters to show that the Agents (Dorchester Ground Rent Management) had previously corresponded with my correct address. About 2 years ago Dorchester took over the collection of the ground rent and there was much confusion when this happened. After many emails and calls to PDC and Dorchester, PDC telephoned me to say they would reduce their collection fees if I paid them. I continued to say that they or Dorchester had not acted reasonably and had not communicated with me correctly and said I was willing to pay the outstanding debt but the unlawful charges. They wrote to me saying they would be perusing the mater through the courts. I emailed PDC and Dorchester again explaining my position. Eventually PDC said that they would be handing the debt back to Dorchester to peruse. I received no communication from Dorchester and eventually emailed them to say I was willing to pay and would they contact me. Still no reply, I wrote again (with a copy to their complaint department) saying that as I had not heard from them I would send payment to them electronically and requested an up to date statement of my account. This morning I received an email from Dorchester informing me that the payment had been received and my account with them was zero. No hint of apology! Dorchester claimed that they could not respond to my emails and calls because they had employed PDC Ltd to handle the case, this is rubbish, they could have easily called the dogs (PDC) off having read my emails. It’s clear to me that they encouraged PDC to be aggressive in their approach in order to cover PDC fees! Dorchester is managing the ground rent collections on behalf of Aviva (a household name), I wonder if such household firms are aware that these guys working on their behalf try unfairly to exhort money form leaseholders?