Service charges: I’m now paying £8,000 a year for my flat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgllrdljj57o
Posted by Aggressive_Plates
Service charges: I’m now paying £8,000 a year for my flat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgllrdljj57o
Posted by Aggressive_Plates
10 Comments
Doesn’t own the building or the flat, has to still pay for repairs.
This is just renting with extra steps.
>His experience means he thinks fewer and fewer people will consider ever buying or living in a leasehold property.
I think for most people it’s not really a case of wanting a leasehold property but being effectively forced into one due to budget and location.
Better regulation is one step, the next is to look at other countries to see if there are better methods for managing blocks of flats etc. My brother in law seems to have a much better of time with it in Poland, although he does seem to have some sort of role in the building committee
**A flat “bought as an investment to provide him with a pension in his old age”.**
So, he’s a fucking scalper? boohoo.
Although I can agree with the discussion on service charges should be made could BBC not have found someone struggling to live rather than an investor planning to make money off the flat?
You should be paying more. You haven’t tipped your landlord yet.
Bought as an investment. So he bought it to rent out?
If you are buying leasehold, the questions to ask are
1. Does it have flammable cladding?
2. Does it have elevators?
3. Does it have amenities such as a gym /pool?
4. Does it have a doorman/staff on site?
If you answer yes to any of these. Expect service charges to be at least 6k, also expect these to rise every year by at least inflation.
If you don’t have any of these, you can expect sensible charges. Insurance is insane at the moment. The value of property has increased, so you need bigger insurance values. Same with car insurance. I pay ~3k a year.
New builds are poorly built, maintaining the building will become expensive.
We had this, we sold our place to next to nothing. Never will I do leasehold again.
I pay about 3k a year and I thought that was bad. It’s hella expensive, can’t wait to move into a house instead
If the government want more people to live in flats then they need to sort this mess out.
I seriously don’t mind service charges if the administrators actually take care of the place, but my experience so far is that the service charge goes to some type of black hole where the building still has plenty of issues and there’s not much to do other than raising a claim and pray for the best