Flat/House Management Charges

marathonic

Out of interest, to see what sort of ranges there is and what is most common:

• What do you pay for management charges
• How many bedrooms is in your house/flat
• Does the cost vary depending on the size for each residence in your block/estate
• What percentage of this is a management company fee as opposed to actual costs
• Have annual increases been in excess of inflation

marathonic

In my case:

• I pay £42 per quarter
• It's a 4-bedroom house
• Prices don't vary within the estate, i.e. the 3-beds and 2-beds pay the same
• £24 per quarter out of the £42 is the management fee according to the latest accounts
• Increases have been below inflation except for a one-off payment requested for gritting during the cold winter of 2010

The management fee for the 76 houses primarily covers cutting grass in the communal areas and insurance. No other maintenance is required.

I suspect the below inflation increases are the result of more than half of people not paying at the moment. When the majority of the estate are paying, I expect the increases to begin.

mysterywoman10

Really people are now living in privately owned houses on estates that expect maintanence charges??? I am behind the times!!

I cannot believe this has taken off and properties still sold, why were communal areas not just allocated to a particular property i.e. it was that propertie's land? With covernants to keep them green and open? That is what always used to happen. It certainly did on our estate that was built in 1988.

Sounds like a massive con to me. When normally roads end up getting adopted etc etc. anyway. Albeit our estate never gets gritted but I can and I'm sure most people can live with that!!

Flats clearly are a different matter altogether.

:eek::eek:

marathonic

I'm not sure about England, Scotland and Wales but, in Northern Ireland, a lot of the estates built over the past 10 or 12 years have had to have management companies set up to look after the roads until they were adopted, keep communal areas in order and have public liability insurance in place.

I believe this was a planning permission requirement so, for a newer housing estate, there was no escaping it.

As expected, the older estates don't have this requirement.

By the way, here are the "wonderful" reviews for my management company:

http://lookaly.com/p/charterhouse-property-management-belfast/

mysterywoman10

I'm amazed!!! Serously I am!

What an earth do they need Public Liability Insurance for?

marathonic

As far as I'm aware, the council take over the roads but no longer take over communal areas (and every development must have a certain percentage of communal area).

The public liability insurance is required in case anyone gets injured on the communal areas.

Signing up to the management company is part of the conveyancing process and there's no way around it. You can appoint a new management company or set one up yourself as each resident is a shareholder in the company but people tend to not bother due to the fact that, when it comes to things like this, it's a minority of people that always end up doing a majority of the work. Therefore, people tend to 'put up' with whatever management company was originally assigned by the developer.

The management companies also tend to be set up as insurance brokers too so that, not only do they get their portion of the management fees but they get broker commissions from the insurance. This leads a lot of people to believe, and probably rightly so, that the selected insurance is the one that pays the highest broker commissions as opposed to the cheapest or the one with the best coverage.

propertyman

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

I cannot believe this has taken off and properties still sold, why were communal areas not just allocated to a particular property i.e. it was that propertie's land? With covernants to keep them green and open? That is what always used to happen. It certainly did on our estate that was built in 1988.

Sounds like a massive con to me. When normally roads end up getting adopted etc etc. anyway. Albeit our estate never gets gritted but I can and I'm sure most people can live with that!!

On the latter point councils routine refuse to adopt paths roads and lighting and those that do want a huge payment to take it on.
On the former rare is the person who would take on ownerhsip and upkeep of land used by anyone in the scheme. Let alone the potential liability.

What you might be conflating is an open piece of land that is unfenced and open but is that houses but is not a communal space as such. We have one like that with along strip that is our land but the fence or hedge has to be x feet back from the path.

propertyman

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

I'm amazed!!! Serously I am!

What an earth do they need Public Liability Insurance for?

Because if any member of the public a resident or trespasser or guest hurts them selves they can and will sue. Property owners have a duty of care and liability to any users.

propertyman

marathonic wrote: »

As far as I'm aware, the council take over the roads

many dont or not without a cheque from the developer.

tim123456789

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

I'm amazed!!! Serously I am!

What an earth do they need Public Liability Insurance for?

So you'd be flabbergasted to hear that they need to get terrorism cover!

(Yes really!)

tim

KennyH1

What do you pay for management charges - £2200 service charge , £250 ground rent, £450 buildings insurance!
How many bedrooms is in your house/flat - 2bed city centre apartment
Does the cost vary depending on the size for each residence in your block/estate - Based on the size of the flat. There are 177 flats and we have the largest!!
What percentage of this is a management company fee as opposed to actual costs - Management fee equates to 25% of the total service charge. Total serivice charge for 2012 = £148,000 plus and additional £96,000 for the car parking!!
Have annual increases been in excess of inflation - Increase of 4.79% on 2011.