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I have a no ground rent, leasehold on a flat, no sinking fund.
Either I can let the landlord S20 us, or we can take on wear and tear maintenance ourselves. We're doing the latter for roof work currently.
I personally don't think it's necessary, the only question is whether people have enough savings to cover unexpected 4 and 5 figure surprises in the future. If they don't... sinking funds give a degree of peace of mind (but can still fall short).
I'm meh on it... if it's such a concern, can they afford home ownership? I have more questions about who controls the sinking fund and who gets quotes and authorises work.
Velocio-
can they afford home ownership?
This. We have no service charge and all leaseholders (6 maisonettes in three terraced houses) share responsibility for maintenance. In practice, individual flats fix things that directly affect them. The number of tire kickers we had that got scared by there being no SF was shocking, to me. I think they are told that the sinking fund will cover anything that comes up in future. Which just isn't the case. I, personally, would much rather it be the way it is than have to deal with the additional admin overhead and likely shit value for money of there being a heft service charge. Also, it's not like it's a block of 50 flats, there's only so much can go wrong.
/jinx
stevo_com
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