Buying house, seller "forgot" estate charges

Mckenna

glasgowdan wrote: »

It is bad of the HA to try and continue to charge for this property despite a potential new buyer highlighting the fact that none of the charges relate to the plot. What will they do if you don't pay? Why not try to find something relating to the original agreement between the HA and property owners? Something that states what the charges are for? Why not knock the door of a couple of the fee exempt houses and ask if they had to go through a process?

If it were me, and I liked the house, I'd not pay a penny, and instigate the process that the other houses went through.

We have this information, the charges are for mowing the grassed areas on the estate, the majority are attached to the front and rear/side of other HA properties.
In addition to this it is for the maintenance of the grassed communal area to the HA flats two streets behind, and for their industrial waste bin collection.

As to what they did originally, 10 or so of them banded together and approached the HA, for much the same reasons i have listed and the HA agreed with them (at the time) and they have been exempt from charges since, however it is still in the deeds to those properties.

In addition if we were ever to look at extending the property we must have the HA approval for the plans before we can do it.

moneyistooshorttomention

Mckenna wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, i didn't consider this option and we will give it a go, i would be happy even if they reduced the sale cost by 5-6k, this would cover about 15 years of the estate fees (by then alot will have changed in our lives with kids having grown up etc)

No, it was priced at the exact the same price as other houses in that street, another private house has just sold in the street this week for 6k less than what we have offered for ours.
And this was one of the houses that pay no estate fees.

Then in that case that equals

"Dear vendor, I hereby reduce my offer to take account of:
- price other house sold at = £6,000
- 15 years x £400 pa = £6,000

Total reduction in offer is = £12,000.

This is my final offer. If it is not accepted - I regret I will be looking to purchase elsewhere".

They might have "said" that "we don't care". Doesnt necessarily mean they really don't care - they might be bluffing.

Doozergirl

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Then in that case that equals

"Dear vendor, I hereby reduce my offer to take account of:
- price other house sold at = £6,000
- 15 years x £400 pa = £6,000

Total reduction in offer is = £12,000.

This is my final offer. If it is not accepted - I regret I will be looking to purchase elsewhere".

They might have "said" that "we don't care". Doesnt necessarily mean they really don't care - they might be bluffing.

They are a Housing Association. They don't do bluffing. No one there cares.

One day, you will realise that life is a lot easier when you are straight with people and stop second guessing them. You cannot second guess people. It's a waste of mental energy and ultimately physical energy.

Make any offer you like that you're prepared to stick to but don't expect people to bluff you. People pay maintenance charges. It happens.

mije1983

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

"Dear vendor, I hereby reduce my offer to take account of:
- price other house sold at = £6,000

What has the sale price of another house that has nothing to do with the OP or the HA got to do with the one the OP wants to buy? The OP was the one that made the offer, so they were obviously happy to pay the extra for this house when they made it. Yes the OP could try and negotiate, but the best time to do this research was before the offer was made, not weeks down the line. We also don't know the condition of the 2 houses to get a reasonable comparison.

Cakeguts

First of all you wouldn't be paying for nothing you would be paying for estate common parts to be kept tidy. Do you want to live on an estate where no grass is ever cut or bins emptied? If not then your charges go towards this. What other people have arranged with the housing association has nothing to do with the house you want to buy. If you want to buy this house you will have to pay the charges and ask permission for an extension. This is what the searches carried out by your solicitor are for they make sure you know exactly what you are buying. Now that you know exactly what you are buying you don't like it so don't buy it look for something else.

david1951

Normally maintenance charges are not in adverts. If I'm buying somewhere this would be my first query to the estate agent. A lot of the time they will be reluctant to tell you (they might be aware it is very high) as it can put people off looking at the house. I just get it in writing before spending too much money.

Anyway you didn't and now your solicitor has done what you paid them to do. This is the nature of due diligence. You aren't entitled to any money for carrying this out.

As for negotiating, "I don't want to pay" isn't a good reason. Nor is "they are too high". Look at it from their point of view. There must be a reason why some people don't pay it, so try to find this out and go from there.

moneyistooshorttomention

I think the thing is that most people would ask the EA re if there were maintenance charges etc if the place was a flat (ie because it's commonplace for flats to have that).

It wouldnt cross most peoples minds to ask that re a house. Houses don't normally have them. Unless you're told otherwise then you "know" that a house will be freehold/no maintenance charges or any other charges. This may depend a bit on part of the country - and it's certainly something I'd never even heard of in my part of the country. All I'd heard of (ie in the West Country) was that some houses are "Duchy of Cornwall" and not therefore fully "normal" type houses and they are priced at an appropriately lower price. Apart from that - all other houses I've ever come across there are totally bog-standard/normal in all respects.

Can't say whether builders are doing their modern-day "pulling it" stunt on any very recently built housing there or no - but no-one I've ever heard of personally has anything other than a bog-standard arrangement on their house (freehold/no charges).

So - I would only ask these days because of having read about this sort of stuff going on on this sub-forum - otherwise it still literally wouldnt occur to me.

The HA should have put this fact up on their details - along with details of room sizes - as it's a fact that influences whether one goes and views a house in the first place or decides it's too expensive. If those details had been there on the details at the outset (as they should have been) then he would have thought "Right x house is that much", but "HA house is what they say + say £20,000 or more of ongong costs" and probably wouldnt have viewed this house in the first place.

"Due diligence" is all well and good - but, by the time you've done that - you've taken time and spent money for something the other party involved should have told you at the outset and deliberately didn't (ie because they were being devious - and planning to say "Whoops - sorry - we forgot" if they got caught out by a buyer realising in time before Contracts were Exchanged).

Guest101

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I think the thing is that most people would ask the EA re if there were maintenance charges etc if the place was a flat (ie because it's commonplace for flats to have that).

It wouldnt cross most peoples minds to ask that re a house. Houses don't normally have them. Unless you're told otherwise then you "know" that a house will be freehold/no maintenance charges or any other charges. This may depend a bit on part of the country - and it's certainly something I'd never even heard of in my part of the country. All I'd heard of (ie in the West Country) was that some houses are "Duchy of Cornwall" and not therefore fully "normal" type houses and they are priced at an appropriately lower price. Apart from that - all other houses I've ever come across there are totally bog-standard/normal in all respects.

Can't say whether builders are doing their modern-day "pulling it" stunt on any very recently built housing there or no - but no-one I've ever heard of personally has anything other than a bog-standard arrangement on their house (freehold/no charges).

So - I would only ask these days because of having read about this sort of stuff going on on this sub-forum - otherwise it still literally wouldnt occur to me.

The HA should have put this fact up on their details - along with details of room sizes - as it's a fact that influences whether one goes and views a house in the first place or decides it's too expensive. If those details had been there on the details at the outset (as they should have been) then he would have thought "Right x house is that much", but "HA house is what they say + say £20,000 or more of ongong costs" and probably wouldnt have viewed this house in the first place.

"Due diligence" is all well and good - but, by the time you've done that - you've taken time and spent money for something the other party involved should have told you at the outset and deliberately didn't (ie because they were being devious - and planning to say "Whoops - sorry - we forgot" if they got caught out by a buyer realising in time before Contracts were Exchanged).

It's a HA, the op must've had an inkling there would be some charges.

moneyistooshorttomention

Guest101 wrote: »

It's a HA, the op must've had an inkling there would be some charges.

Not necessarily.

It's a house - not a flat - and so why would they?

Back along - the chance arose to buy a public sector flat I had rented for a while. Now, if I'd still been in that flat at that time, I might/might not have bought it - and the thought wouldnt have occurred to me (I was a lot younger and hadnt heard about these exorbitant bills HA's come out with/hadnt even heard of service charges on flats - as everyone I knew that was a home-owner owned a house).

Again - I only know now (at my age) courtesy of much reading of this Forum. Add - a recent encounter with a home-owner that had bought his Housing Association place (flat in this case) and was an intelligent guy and was telling me all about how much his HA charges for bills for work done (compared to what the cost really should be - and would be if a private householder was paying it).

I'm guessing OP still hasnt realised yet that firms doing work on HA property and Council property often deliberately charge way over the odds of what the price really should be....:cool: - courtesy of these firms realising they have a "golden goose" public sector purchaser there.

Guest101

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Not necessarily.

It's a house - not a flat - and so why would they?

Back along - the chance arose to buy a public sector flat I had rented for a while. Now, if I'd still been in that flat at that time, I might/might not have bought it - and the thought wouldnt have occurred to me (I was a lot younger and hadnt heard about these exorbitant bills HA's come out with/hadnt even heard of service charges on flats - as everyone I knew that was a home-owner owned a house).

Again - I only know now (at my age) courtesy of much reading of this Forum. Add - a recent encounter with a home-owner that had bought his Housing Association place (flat in this case) and was an intelligent guy and was telling me all about how much his HA charges for bills for work done (compared to what the cost really should be - and would be if a private householder was paying it).

I'm guessing OP still hasnt realised yet that firms doing work on HA property and Council property often deliberately charge way over the odds of what the price really should be....:cool: - courtesy of these firms realising they have a "golden goose" public sector purchaser there.

Well because the council hasn't adopted the communal land.


Actually it's often the complete opposite. Public bodies must follow the supplier matrix (in my case anything over £5,000 has to have 3 quotes, anything over X (I think it's £50,000) has to be out to public tender)


In many cases works are done by the in house team and any communal charges are simply the costs split by the number of properties, each paying their share.


£400 a year - just over £1 a day is not extortionate for year round service and maintenance. (given that it likely includes roads, pavements and all communal areas)


Freehold doesn't mean there's no service charge, just there's no ground rent (since you own it)