Leasehold service charge higher than advertised

loki20

They had been sent a notification of the price increase. It may have got lost in the post, or maybe they didn't read it properly. Are you saying that we shouldn't be asking for a reduction because they didn't know some information about the property they were selling?

Surely, by that logic, if they had said that the property comes with all of the furniture, white goods etc., had been unaware somehow that that was all owned by their lodger, then we would just have to suck it up and say, well, they told us what they knew. Let's get shopping...

Dan-Dan

You seem to be totally blanking the ex-LA dont buy advice ?
This is MSE , you might be wise to at least think on about what`s being said

loki20

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Do not buy this ex-LA property! It's going to cost you more than a £600 a year uplift in service-charges over the years. Once they start doing any substantial repairs or modernisations the owner-occupiers are going to be changed far in excess of their real percentage shares. My mother discovered this quite soon after she bought her ex-LA flat and was still in dispute with them when she died.

Is this a thing you have against all Ex-Local authority properties? This one, along with all the other flats were modernized several years ago with double glazing new flooring etc. The lease specifies that there are no planned upgrades for the next 5 years and there is a board consisting of mostly residents and several independents which have to vote through upgrade works.

BitterAndTwisted

Oh fgs, just ask them to knock £600 off the price and be done with it.

This flat is going to cost you substantially more than a mere £600 a year in future, I promise you that. You have been warned and are patently focussing on trivia rather than on more serious financial matters.

Don't forget to come back in a year or two and tell us how much the service-charges have soared since purchased. Because they will. What future "improvements" for the next five years has your conveyancer discovered the is LA planning?

loki20

Dan-Dan wrote: »

You seem to be totally blanking the ex-LA dont buy advice ?
This is MSE , you might be wise to at least think on about what`s being said

I'm not ignoring it, but like with all advice, I'm taking it with a pinch of salt. There seem to be a lot of people who have had bad experiences with ex-LA, but I also know people who have had good experiences.

Is your advice to stay away from all ex-LA too?

loki20

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Don't forget to come back in a year or two and tell us how much the service-charges have soared since purchased. Because they will. What future "improvements" for the next five years has your conveyancer discovered the is LA planning?

I'm not focussing on trivia, I asked a question, so I wanted to focus on the question. I'm not ignoring your advice, I'm looking into it, but I just find it hard to believe that a blanket statement that all people should stay away from all ex-LA all the time can be fully accurate. There are no improvements planned in the next 5 years.

martinsurrey

loki20 wrote: »

I'm not focussing on trivia, I asked a question, so I wanted to focus on the question. I'm not ignoring your advice, I'm looking into it, but I just find it hard to believe that a blanket statement that all people should stay away from all ex-LA all the time can be fully accurate. There are no improvements planned in the next 5 years.

so no upgrades planned in the next 5 years, but the service charge has gone up by 50% in one year!

what happens if its 50% every year?

loki20

martinsurrey wrote: »

so no upgrades planned in the next 5 years, but the service charge has gone up by 50% in one year!

what happens if its 50% every year?

The estimated cost for most years has been around £1600, however last year it was £1300 because of overpayments among other things. The £1300 was all we were told to start with.

The majority of the extra £300 for this year is estimated gas, water and heating because it was a particularly cold winter. There have been marginal increases in other things such as management fees, cleaning etc. but these are pretty consistent rises.

Errata

I'd be chuffed to buttons if the total costs of my gas, electric and water only increased by £6 a week, year on year.

loki20

Errata wrote: »

I'd be chuffed to buttons if the total costs of my gas, electric and water only increased by £6 a week, year on year.

It doesn't include electricity, but yes, it isn't an unreasonable increase. It still doesn't change the fact that we were misquoted.