Owning your own home

Just offer them £50k less

Assume because it’s so far out a section 20 hasn’t been issued?

That sounds a lot like it's to get their housing up to the level to meet the Decent Homes standard (2006). The deadline for this was supposed to (I think 2010) but lots of Councils applied for extensions to this, I know Lambeth did as we had major works completed last year along with a huge amount of other estates in the borough.

For reference the works on our block included asbestos removal, concrete repair, roofing, double glazing for every property (approx 25). Our 1 bed flat estimate (still not finally billed) was almost £25k.

Our previous flat was picked up for major refurbishment works which we didn't know about when purchasing although I knew the roof required replacing (I'm a Building Surveyor).

When they came round to do the survey I made sure I was there and had a chat with the surveyor. It turned out that the value of the works was capped at £15k which was split between us and our upstairs neighbour who were social housing tenants (social housing were also our freeholder).

I estimated the roof works would take up much of the joint liability which meant that anything else was free. I managed to squeeze the surveyor for 2 new front doors, a new back door, render repairs, window replacements (the majority) and full external redecoration (only the bottom (our) half of the property was previously decorated). The total cost of the works was circa £35k so we managed to get £20k or so of free work done which obviously completely transformed the appearance of the property. Repayment was staggered, interest free and we cleared the final amount when selling with the profit we made.

Basically, major refurb works can be a very good thing if you're savvy/lucky.