Buying a leasehold flat. Help needed.

Franbern describes a "voluntary" management company but the problem with this is that there is often somebody within the property who cannot or will not pay for work that needs doing. If people know that they have to pay into the fund regularly this shouldn't arise.

GrandmaMia1

As a previous manager of this type of property I would advise not to buy. There is a fee to pay every time you want to apply to make changes eg new bathroom. Annual maintenance fees can go up a great deal. This was highlighted on BBC. Recently. I am really sorry to sound so negative but I feel you need to know. Has there been a survey on the whole property or just your flat?

It is important though that changes to properties are noted. Sometimes people have structural work done without using competent surveyors and this can adversely affect the structure of the whole building.
I do agree about manintenance fees though. We have a small rental flat and the management of the building has recently changed. The new company is already proving more expensive and less efficient.

karmalady

also, have a dig and find the sinking fund and how much is ring fenced in it. The group of 40 properties had an empty sinking fund, the developer used the money as part of his building costs

New developments are often sold with very low initial management charges. Obviously this means that no sinking fund is built up, so when work needs doing the charges can go up dramatically.
This happened to several blocks on a local development and the market was flooded with flats as landlords tried to sell their flats before the charges where imposed.
A good solicitor should be able to pick up future increases from the minutes of management meetings, but we were stung once by a hefty roofing charge which the seller knew about but had not officially been minuted.

A solicitor will not see the minutes of management meetings but will see the accounts and a standard enquiry is what works are intended in the near future. A new block should not need significant expenditure initially (there will be a NHBC or similar guarantee) but it is important that service charges from the outset include a contribution to the sinking fund. If a seller knows of upcoming expenditure they have a duty to disclose it and can be sued for failing to do so unless it should have been discovered through the usual enquiries of the management company.

I live in my leasehold 2 bed flat with no problems I just pay service charges each month and the housing association maintain the block - I can ring them to report communal repairs or any problems

Isn’t it a great shame that so few bungalows are built now, and when existing ones come up for sale, the new owners invariably have them knocked down and replaced by a large house.

There must be so many retired people who would like to sell their large family home, but who don’t want a flat with all the problems associated with them.

Of course for developers, there is more money in putting a block of flats on a plot of land, so I can only see the problem getting worse for downsizers.

I understand the desire for bungalows among some people, but do wonder whetehr they are actually as essential for easy living as people seem automatically to assume.

When bungalows originally seemed to be the ideal home for every elderly couple able to afford one, we did not have the enormous range of domestic stairlifts and lifts we have today.

Surely, a two storey house with a lift installed that is large enough for a standard wheelchair, with occupant and attendant can offer just as much ease of movement as a bungalow. You see lifts and stair lifts of a wide variety of sizes and type but all suitable for domestic installation advertised in the back pages of almost every weekend newspaper.

The current price of land in most parts of the UK make building more bungalows prohibitive because the price of the plot needed for the average 2 bed bungalow would price it out of the market it was built for.

I agree many of us think we would like a bungalow but a friend who has admitted to me that she feels not trying to go up and down stairs has made it more difficult when she is out and about.

MOnica, although stairs cause me pain there is no way I would ever have a lift or stair lift installed. Ugly things. I would rather crawl up the stairs if I had to.

Cathy, Thank you for raising this issue, it’s raised so many points. I was kind of tempted to go in an over 55 development, all amenities, but the service charge was £10.000. per year escalating for a one bed, so I ditched the idea. What a nightmare for my family when I die. I am glad new rules are coming in. GSM you are a mine of information, thank you. I wonder how many people unwittingly have ended up in trouble with leasehold. My friend has a flat and along with all other flat owners own the freehold and that seems to work. However I think a small 2 bed with small garden sounds a good idea.

Thank you Allsorts.

I am so glad I asked the Gransnetters for their thoughts. What an interesting thread and so informative.

Thanks to GSM for sharing her knowledge and everyone else who contributed.

I have I pulled out of buying the flat and would not consider a leasehold property.

I’m glad you’re not buying the flat. You won’t regret it.

luluaugust

I agree many of us think we would like a bungalow but a friend who has admitted to me that she feels not trying to go up and down stairs has made it more difficult when she is out and about.

‘Bungalow knees’ are definitely a known ‘thing’. My parents in their mid 60s and still perfectly mobile, moved to a bungalow - not because they particularly wanted one, but because it was all they could find in their chosen area.

But after 3 years they decided they didn’t like the area after all, and moved again, to a house. And were dismayed to find how the lack of stairs had affected their ability to manage them easily, with no effort.

Of course their fitness did return eventually, and my mother was still able to manage stairs when she finally moved to a care home at nearly 89 (dementia). I do realise that she was (comparatively) very lucky, though

GSM If a house is designed around a lift, it would not need to be ugly. It can be designed in like a cloakroom, behind a door.

Stair lifts are mainly retrofit and your assumption is that you will always be able to crawl up the stairs. My rule has always been never to say never. It has saved me from having to climb down from a lot of high peaks.

Quite separately, and more generally, when my father retired, his employer offered him a pre-retirement course which he attended, and the health speaker recommended that all those who bought bungalows to should go into their nearest town centre, at least once a week, visit their local department store and walk up and down a couple of flights of stairs there in order not to get 'bungalow legs' Of course those were the days when nearly every town centre had an (open) department store.

Of course the vast majority of lifts are retro-fitted! Fortunately we have a ground floor bedroom and wet room here if things get that bad.

Through the floor lifts don’t need to be ugly.

My relative has it upstairs in the spare bedroom and calls it down when needed. Due to the construction of the property it was the only place it could be sited and works a treat.

Cathy04, so your decision not to purchase any leasehold property means that you can never choose a flat or apartment.
I think this is a big mistake.
I also was against flat living. Had lived in a council flat with my parents until I married in the early sixties. After that ALWAY in a house.#
From day one, when I moved to this flat I was 78 years of age), I absolutely loved this living on the one level. Wake up in the night and could make myself a cup of tea and piece of toast in the kitchen just a few steps across the hallways. Sitting in living room and remembering something i needed from my bedroom, no having to climb upstairs, just pop into next door room. So easy to keep clean, wonderful feeling of security here. No flats on ground floor (our garages are there), it always feels safe and cosy here. In bungalow, I would not have this secure feeling, would have all the maintenance concerns that I was happy to rid myself off from my house, no worry about gutters, fences, gardens, etc.etc.

Do not think people have understood and appreciated the difference between a normal block of purpose built flats and those that are labled 'retirement.

We can have any contractors to carry out work in our flats, (although often see who other people use, and take recommendations), when our flats go on sale, they do so through normal local Estate Agents, no involvement from the management Company/
With a voluntary management company drawn entirely from flat owners, out costs are kept to the minimum and work is carried out quickly. NO changes can be made to our annual service charge except at an AGM and by majority vote of the flat owners (not just a majority of those attending).

The fact that the \Management Company has to deal with getting in any builders, etc for necessary work, takes another responsibility from me.....a further point in favour of living in a flat.

Like anything to do with property purchase, care has to be taken and a check on the Management Company should be part of that care.

For my part I must say that I would NEVER return to living in the isolation of a freehold house or bungalow.

You live in a small block and the residents manage it themselves, Fran. That is very different to a larger development in which some leaseholders are non-resident and have no interest in keeping service charges low. Your fellow residents are probably like-minded people who don’t cause nuisance to one another. And perhaps you all own (via the management company) a share of the freehold so nobody is hung out to dry if they need to extend their lease or charged a lot of money if they want to carry out alterations. Your situation is good but it is not representative.