Buying ex-Local Authority flat

lemonslice

Torry_Quine wrote: »

I live in an ex-council property. The council is not my landlord, no-one is, why would a private home have a landlord at all? There aren't service charges, again what for?

Personally I think that they are good as they tend to have been kept in good condition. The only work done was painting the guttering when they were doing the rest of the building but we didn't have to get the work done.

Like Torry Quine I also live in a Ex council place,(kincorth) we bought it from them in 2009, also In Aberdeen, and we have never had any charges for anything?? no landlord, I owe my property end of, It also states in the paperwork when you buy what if anything you might be required to help pay for,
our property is up for sale now its huge! very large rooms & we have very little sound or any bother from the neighbours
we have had good interest no-one has asked about charges etc

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lemonslice wrote: »

Like Torry Quine I also live in a Ex council place,(kincorth) we bought it from them in 2009, also In Aberdeen, and we have never had any charges for anything?? no landlord, I owe my property end of, It also states in the paperwork when you buy what if anything you might be required to help pay for,
our property is up for sale now its huge! very large rooms & we have very little sound or any bother from the neighbours
we have had good interest no-one has asked about charges etc

As mentioned in other posts the law is different in Scotland regarding property compared to the rest of UK. Why are you selling if it is so great....

lemonslice

we need 3 bedrooms as I have 2 children, my place only has 2.

KittyLady

It's also worth looking at the local crime maps for the areas. The first property in Tettenhall has a lot of crime around it. There were two instances of antisocial behaviour on or around that street and a drugs incident. The second flat, very little crime and nothing on the actual street.

GDB2222

Let me give you some idea of service charges I regularly get on my ex-local authority flats. External decorations £5k-7k per flat every 5 years. This is in addition to the standard service charges that come every year of typically £1k. Occasionally, I get hit with a £15k service charge for each flat, like the year that they installed double glazing in the blocks.

Just at the moment LAs are in a tizz about fire safety, because of problems in that tower block in London where the fire spread more than it ought to have done. I am expecting bills of £10-15k per flat.

As a LL in London, that's all not too bad for me. The big service charge bills eat up 1 to 1.5 years' rent, but only about 1 year in 5. As a private individual stretching myself to buy a flat on a mortgage, it would be an utter disaster.

I don't usually give so much private info about myself to a load of strangers on a public forum, and I have opened myself up purely to warn the OP to run a mile from these flats.

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I am assuming that most of your block is privately owned that is why you are getting the external done every 5 years, if you block is mainly rented then you will not get your block done every five years it will be more like 20 or 30 years. We have the same lino in the corridors of the block that's been there since the block was built in the 70's. No big money to be made from rented property that is why they are let go into depletions.

GDB2222

No, not at all. They scaffold the whole block and do a full redecoration - it's important to stop concrete rot.

The isnide is generally pretty poor. For example, lino on the ground floor but not any of the others. Caretaker only sweeps teh ground floor. In the circs, it's amazing how house-proud the tenants are, and there's a lot of good-neighbourliness.

seven-day-weekend

THank you all for your comments, especially GDB2222, I have taken all these on board and our son will not proceed further with these flats, between us we may be able to up the budget and get a little freehold property.

poorlittlefish

Councils have had to improve many blocks (and tenanted flats) in order to bring them up to the Decent Homes standard. I work in leasehold for a LA and yes, the bills to leaseholders for these types of works can be very high. Most of the work in my borough has been finished, but blocks and estates will always need maintaining and unfortunately leaseholders are required to contribute. Any works likely to cost each leaseholder more than £250 are subject to a Section 20 consultation process, which means they are not sprung on leaseholders with no notice (exempting emergencies). If the Council doesn't issue Section 20s then invoices are limited to £250.

I've no doubt that the state of cleanliness in some blocks or estates across the country is dire. However, I know of particular blocks where the cleaners go round in the morning and by the evening the residents have made the place filthy again, so it can be a never-ending battle.

Service charges very much depends on the type of block, the services provided and the area. Where I previously worked (in an outer London borough) the average yearly service charge was less than £400. In my current one it's around the £1,000 mark but satisfaction with the condition of estates is relatively good.

The freehold of a block can be purchased if at least two thirds are occupied by leaseholders and of that percentage, half want to buy. There's quite a bit more to it than that and leaseholders often don't fully understand the responsibilities they will be required to take on. However, we do have a number of blocks that are now owned and managed by the leaseholders.

moremore

poorlittlefish wrote: »

Councils have had to improve many blocks (and tenanted flats) in order to bring them up to the Decent Homes standard. I work in leasehold for a LA and yes, the bills to leaseholders for these types of works can be very high. Most of the work in my borough has been finished, but blocks and estates will always need maintaining and unfortunately leaseholders are required to contribute. Any works likely to cost each leaseholder more than £250 are subject to a Section 20 consultation process, which means they are not sprung on leaseholders with no notice (exempting emergencies). If the Council doesn't issue Section 20s then invoices are limited to £250.

I've no doubt that the state of cleanliness in some blocks or estates across the country is dire. However, I know of particular blocks where the cleaners go round in the morning and by the evening the residents have made the place filthy again, so it can be a never-ending battle.

Service charges very much depends on the type of block, the services provided and the area. Where I previously worked (in an outer London borough) the average yearly service charge was less than £400. In my current one it's around the £1,000 mark but satisfaction with the condition of estates is relatively good.

The freehold of a block can be purchased if at least two thirds are occupied by leaseholders and of that percentage, half want to buy. There's quite a bit more to it than that and leaseholders often don't fully understand the responsibilities they will be required to take on. However, we do have a number of blocks that are now owned and managed by the leaseholders.

We pay on average 25k a year for a block of flats of 60 and most of them are rented very few long leases for what we pay, we get nothing only the middle of the floor wet with a dirty mop and dirty water and that is a fact. All dirt is pushed into corners and side of the floor ground floor that is as they do not touched for years until someone complaints to them, the common stairwell or corridors of above the ground floor are not cleaned at all by the lazy caretaker and BTW all of them have been like that it is amazing would are they told not to do it by their managers. :mad:

Caretaker and supervisors mantra is 'it the tenants fault' and that has it been for many years, no wonder blocks of councils flats are called ghettos and it is the councils fault certainly not the tenants as they would like everyone to believe. :eek:

I would hate to be a long leaseholder when capital works needs to be carry out on the block. As for decent home project councils purchased all the units in a bulk therefore one size fits all regardless how big or small bedsit tenants home were. They was an uproar about it people were left without any facilities as the contractor that they were using was from another EU country and did not know about UK regulations regarding plumbing or electricity. Council do not care about tenants only wants their money.