Services Charge and Council Tax Lookup

ThemeOne

Is there anywhere online where you can check the service charge and council tax applicable to leasehold properties? I find these are hardly ever included in estate agents' particulars.

davidmcn

Council Tax bands here (assuming it's England or Wales).

Nothing similar for service charges, they're a private matter.

AlexMac

ThemeOne wrote: »

...service chargs ...on leasehold properties... are hardly ever included in estate agents' particulars.

I share your irritation about this, and assume that it's a mix of

- idleness (on the part of both vendors and EAs) plus

- Agents' caution (in that unless they can be assured the info is correct, they wish to avoid misrepresentation; and definitive info can only be provided by the freeholder, and usually has to await solicitors' enquiries)

Having said that, I've experienced significant variation in both the availability of information and the charges themselves; which can vary massively! We are always also interested in the nature of the tenure; whether the freehold is in effect "shared" by leaseholders, wheter its' a Local Authority freehold (not as bad as they are painted in my experience) or whether there's a remote freeholder, possibly shielded behind a managing agent, whose only motive is profit.

When buying a small flat out of London an couple of years ago (on the Isle of Wight) we found local agents to be consistently well-informed and helpful. So we offered on and bought a shared freehold in a small, well-managed and immaculately maintained block with Service Charges of only £450 p.a.

We walked away from wrecks with decaying communal areas and service charges many times that.

On a previous occasion, I was interested in a similar (London) flat whose vendor seemed not to have a clue. So I asked neighbours, determined who the Agent was, and rang 'em, but was told to P155 off. I then googled 'em and did a company search to find they's been on the wrong end of legal action by leaseholders. Needless to say, I ran a mile.

We have friends whose service charges (on a newish block) run to many thousands p.a. And they can't get a sufficient numbers of fellow leaseholders to mount a right to manage bid.

So in the absence of data from the EA there's a lot of informal research you can do yesself before comitting legal and search fees.

ThemeOne

Thanks for the replies. Council Tax is clearly the more straightforward of the two to discover.

I do find lack of upfront information about service charges irritating, as the charges can be very high and/or involve freeholders or freeholders' representatives I would run a mile from (one management company based in north London springs to mind).

jonathanrolande

Agents fear putting them in in case of error. You have to call the council and managing agent to check, there is no register.