Service charges: Flat leaseholders speak of rocketing fees
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68904124
Posted by Aggressive_Plates
Service charges: Flat leaseholders speak of rocketing fees
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68904124
Posted by Aggressive_Plates
14 Comments
Anecdotally mine has gone up from £1600 per year to £2600 per year from 2019 to 2024
This is on a £180k flat in the NE for reference
Justification from the management company is: “repairs as the building is getting older (it’s 18 years old) and increase of the reserve fund for external decorations”
They also expect a further increase going forward as they will need to replenish the reserve fund that will be depleted this year
There’s no reception/concierge, the building is always dirty (bloodstain on the wall for 3 weeks); it’s insane
Absolutely disgusting. I can’t imagine the level of stress these people are dealing with.
Everyone knows leasehold is a con right? Are people still buying into it?
£4k service charge. In Peterborough…
Property is such a disgusting money making scheme for a small minority in this country. As a nation we won’t move forward in any aspect of growth, quality of living, productivity until this is fixed. Developers, management companies and freeholders are literally leeching the life of working people in this country.
Nobody is looking for compo, and this is all just nonsense.
Bullshit on leasehold+service fees. One more way for home builders to profit after selling a property at a huge premium.
And who is this affecting? first-time purchasers, naturally. One more method of manipulating the youth.
A lot of these management companies just fart around doing absolutely nothing, and if it miraculously _is_ more than absolutely nothing it will take them absolutely forever.
Meanwhile, no regard whatsoever for the welfare of the residents, compensating them, keeping them updated etc. The town I used to live in has _three_ separate blocks of flats which have been such a total fuckabout that Michael Gove is personally involved. At one of them all the residents were kicked out by the fire brigade at 10pm on a Friday night and dispersed to hotels, because an inspection had uncovered the building not being built to proper code. This was before Easter 2023, and the building has still undergone no remediation whatsoever and nobody is allowed in.
This is why I would never buy a flat. Houses are more practical, even in England many of them are freehold, and you’re not beholden to this bullshit. If there’s a house or a flat on sale for similar money, it’s house all the way.
BT have been trying to install fibre broadband in my block of flats, but need permission from the freeholder. Over 18 months.
Whom the management company stand in front of
And they keep telling me they can’t get hold of the freeholder to get their permission.
3k a year to these useless cunts.
Flats are great for renting –
Would never own one unless the laws change. I would hate to have escaped the contempt of a landlord only to have to deal with the contempt of another landlord.
Most in our block are currently empty (as in uninhabited for 6 months +) or up for sale, don’t think they will sell when the leasehold is £2k + a year and the building is so obviously neglected. The answer to the housing crisis is clearly in our faces but too many vested interests don’t want to know it.
The carpet is so threadbare and moulding you can see the original floor but a woman still comes round to hoover it once a week 🤣 a great analogy for broken Britain
There is clearly a huge gap in the market for a savvy business person to open a national management company that could offer all these services for a fair cost.
I was looking at a 2 bedroom new build flat a few years ago. I asked the sales rep from the builders (Redrow Homes) about the ground rent fees and if they had any plans to sell them to a 3rd party company. As it was a flat, there was no option to buy the lease.
They said they’d find out and get back to me, but they don’t foresee any issues in future. 2 weeks later, no answer so I asked again. Was told there is nothing to be concerned about, but no written information so I asked again for confirmation that the lease will not be sold onto another company ever.
No answer. It was at that point I backed out.
One thing I’m teaching my children. Trust nobody!
Service charges for the most part are just a microcosm of costs in the general economy. If electricity has increased, service charges go up, if labour for cleaners and plumbers goes up, service charges go up, if lift companies raise their price, if telecoms companies and builders raise their price… etc etc etc.
Then add the new costs directly imposed by goverent under building safety act (one example:- where Government want to charge high rise buildings £144 an hour to audit their safety case submissions, which also need significant consultants time and improvements), the general public need to realise that its not all profiteering by management companies or dodgy landlords, the increase in service charges are just property managers budgeting for the increased costs, which are a reflection of the state of the UK economy and our legal framework.
On the plus side at least the electricity bills are coming down from their insane peak each quarter.
When the huge bills come in and with your shocked Pikachu face, you say “I should have bought Freehold”. Dayum!
The political party that has the balls to sort housing out in this country will hold power for generations. There seem to be so many hidden interests in the status quo that it feels like proper change will be like brexit again….
The housing crises in the UK and Ireland could be essentially solved overnight with 4 measures: Ban AirBnB entire property listings with non-resident landlords; Ban non-resident foreign ownership of domestic property; Ban ownership of domestic property freeholds by venture capital and pension funds; relaxation of planning laws.
Find a political party with the minerals to do that, and not just role over the second big business vested interests kick up a fuss, and you solve the housing crisis.