Owning your own home

Cheers for the detailed reply. All the things you mention appear fine, place looks in decent condition, but pals had one on another property and they found lots of issues inc a form of subsidence. I’d rather throw 1k away than risk finding something later on that takes 10’s of k to fix.

Prob worrying too much, but I don’t plan on ever moving again (global warming and london flood defence plans dependent- going on current projections we could be under water in 10 years).

You may be right, but I’m not confident I’d be able to spot the difference between natural house settling cracks and subsidence cracks. I’m working on the assumption a professional could.

The place we looked at before we bought our current gaff had a little hole in the corner of the master bedroom, our surveyor/building inspector went at it with a screwdriver and brought the whole corner of the room out... Rotten with termite damage that had been painted over... I wouldn't have minded but we knew the sellers, they then had the cheek to have a go at us because they had to repair the damage... Inspector told us to run away from it... It eventually sold six months later for $50k less than the asking price... Builder bought it, he'll fix it up and flip it...

I couldn't imagine not getting a survey...

get a survey. why would you take even a small chance on what is going to be the most important investment in your life?

Hah that's savage! Wonder if they have the balls to do that in the UK.

Apologies for the long post:

What would you do in this situation:

I own a leasehold ground Floor flat. The owner of the upstairs flat is the freeholder of both flats.

In my leasehold it states the freeholder can levy a ‘annual service charge’ for building upkeep.

For 4 years we had an informal arrangement where if a job needed doing we would split the cost. The Freeholder’s brother lives in the flat upstairs and has some issues. Freeholder lives miles away so it’s me who has been flagging up stuff that needs to be done. I’ve also overseen some of the work and done a fair bit myself offer without bothering the freeholder. This included rebuilding the subfloor and floor in our flat as it was completely rotten, I didn’t ask them for a penny for this. We don’t have a great relationship, I think they find us annoying as they’d rather not get involved with the flat and we find them annoying as they have ignored several emails on a few minor issues.

6 months ago the freeholder emailed us and said they want to appoint a management company to take over managing the building. We objected but they did it anyway. This is a terrace house split into two one bed flats. No front garden to speak of, the back garden is ours and we have turned it from a pile of dirt into something rather nice. The communal hallway is tiny. The roof I had checked last year. I clean the gutters.

The list of things the management company stated they would do is
Arrange buildings insurance ( this is set up we pay it annually)
Carry out regular inspections of the property (haven’t seen them in 6 months. The only way they could inspect the rear of the building is through our flat so I know they haven’t been. they were managing our flat before we bought it and It was completely fucked, the floor was about to fall in.)
Manage a small fund of money for future work
Get quotes for work needed.
Clean communal areas at an extra charge (I do this)

We have ignored this situation until now but freeholder and management co are now asking for payment stating they have been employed for 6 months now.

I don’t give a fuck about the freeholder as they’ve been a dick about the whole hing but My concern is I’m planning on selling as soon as I can relocate with work and I want everything in order.

Interested to hear opinions.
Cheers

I’ll gladly come and have a look for you.

We have ignored this situation until now but freeholder and management co are now asking for payment stating they have been employed for 6 months now.

Have they sent you a breakdown of what they have provided?

Ohhhhh really? That would be amazing. I’ll drop you a PM...

The management company have not sent us anything.

He freeholder sent us a list similair to the one I posted in an email when he initially suggested the idea.
We replied to that email saying we didn’t want to do it and were happy with the current arrangement.

My experience of leasehold -

You pay a service charge

That charge is calculated through expenditure + sink fund if any

They send you a breakdown of expenditure, accounts and information on the sink fund if any

Basically they want you to pay money they should show you where the money went.

My experience of leasehold:

You buy a flat

Get anally raped by the managing agent pretty much from the get go

You get fed up

Sell flat and buy house

Well, that’s the risk.

Two flat but freeholder owns one is the worst

That sounds like a right old to do, and a lucky escape, but I would have expected the surveyor on even a basic mortgage valuation to have picked that problem up.

What would I be looking at to renovate and extend into garden a four bed Victorian townhouse?

Price wise?

Yah. North zone 2/3 if that makes a difference

Dep on size and spec expect no less than 50 and prob closer to 70. Could easy go way higher too.

That’s less awful than I imagined, but yeah I can see that ‘it depends’.

I had a rough quote recently, all in it was near 100 but the actual extension part came to 25k. Glass/doors can range from 1000 to 25000 or more. Same with kitchens. My pals renovated recently and they budgeted 65k and I think it came in at 130k in the end. It’s a terrifying can of worms.

"renovate" can mean a lot of different things.

IME, £100k is a starting position.

Indeed.

From https://www.lease-advice.org/fact-sheet/service-charges/ -

"When a landlord demands a service charge it must contain the landlord`s name and address, an agents name and address is not sufficient. The demand must also include a “summary of leaseholders’ rights and obligations”. This includes details of such matters as a leaseholder’s right to apply to the Tribunal, as outlined above. The law states that if the demand does not comply with either of these requirements, the leaseholder has a legal right not to pay unless and until the service charge is demanded in the proper manner."

If you've not received the request with these items included the request to pay is not valid.

Boom, that’s what I was looking for! Cheers

Some very interesting points in there.
Service charge needs to be asked for in the correct manner.
Can only backdate up to 18months.
Any works over £250 need to be consulted with leaseholder in the correct manner.

What does the hive mind think about the scale / cost of fixing this place up?

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/44825229

I couldn’t pay 1M for it bear in mind.

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