Barratt Home Process

pawlala

Even freeholds can have covenants in the deeds which create an income stream for a third party. The covenants relating to estate land management maintenance, usually with an embedded company are now the norm with new build houses. Check whether there are any charges for upkeep of verges, unadopted roads, cul-de-sacs, etc. Get that in writing either way.

Often there are also restrictive covenants where permission for even quite minor alterations has to be requested from the builder or management company who then charge exorbitant fees to even consider the matter. How about £106 fee for just changing carpets, for example. I no jest, it really is happening out there. Be careful and research as much as you can on the development

SuboJvR

The idea that older homes don’t have service charges is getting out of date.

We rent a home built in 1999. It’s not old by any stretch but it’s not new anymore, and there is a service charge.

Aaaanyway

With help to buy the developer will need authority to proceed, which is valid for six months. Therefore you can only get this max six months before completion is due without needing to apply again. Popular developments may also not “wait” for help to buy purchases if their homes are being snapped up by people off plan without it (ie Help to Buy reservations tend to be nearer the six months to completion window).

However that’s not set in stone and more flexible or less popular developments may work with you a bit more. Taylor Wimpey were good to us in this regard as we knew we would only have our deposit on a certain date, which was two months after we reserved. They didn’t shoo us away. Redrow couldn’t have been less interested in selling to us!

In our area now people are being told there’s a two year waiting list for their help to buy properties on a new development starting selling soon.

Timeline would be anyway:

Either early bird interest in a new plot, or reservation fee of £500
Apply for authority to proceed and mortgage about 6 months away from completion
Get both
Exchange contracts and pay deposit
Wait for completion!

mailmannz

joee86 wrote: »

Thanks all for your replies. However, in regards to the garage being a leasehold, am I not right in believing that the government has put a stop to this?

To be honest, we need to use the HTB scheme, which can only be used on new builds, so we really don't have much choice in that regard.

I am going to write a lot of questions down and get them to reply to them in an email.

Does the property you are looking at have a built in garage or a garage on the plot of land with the house OR is the garage built elsewhere? If its built elsewhere, like near a block of flats, then I would just double check whether the garage is freehold or leasehold.

If you you reckon you could have the loan paid off in 4 years why not just stay where you are, start your family BUT save all that money you would have used to pay off the loan for your deposit?

Start your family, but don't use it as an excuse to buy an over priced house with lots of strings attached.

New builds are generally over priced with service charges that never end attached to them (as Ive said before), along with a lot of other conditions that become a pain in the !!!! after you move in.

We had looked at two new build estates near us, nothing under £320k unless you wanted to pay £297k for a house without a kitchen and carpets (but strangely enough the price blew out well over the £300k mark when you added everything in!). Small back yards. High service charges (£500 a year) that will only ever go in one direction! And all of these houses were small! So small you couldn't swing a cat in them!!!

I don't know if my message is coming across to you but Im not a fan of new builds

SuboJvR

mailmannz wrote: »

Does the property you are looking at have a built in garage or a garage on the plot of land with the house OR is the garage built elsewhere? If its built elsewhere, like near a block of flats, then I would just double check whether the garage is freehold or leasehold.

If you you reckon you could have the loan paid off in 4 years why not just stay where you are, start your family BUT save all that money you would have used to pay off the loan for your deposit?

Start your family, but don't use it as an excuse to buy an over priced house with lots of strings attached.

New builds are generally over priced with service charges that never end attached to them (as Ive said before), along with a lot of other conditions that become a pain in the !!!! after you move in.

We had looked at two new build estates near us, nothing under £320k unless you wanted to pay £297k for a house without a kitchen and carpets (but strangely enough the price blew out well over the £300k mark when you added everything in!). Small back yards. High service charges (£500 a year) that will only ever go in one direction! And all of these houses were small! So small you couldn't swing a cat in them!!!

I don't know if my message is coming across to you but Im not a fan of new builds

I've been looking at houses in our area (west Kent) for the last six months and whilst there probably is a slight premium for new builds, it's not outrageous and as the time has gone on the prices have gone up of all houses again here so I'm more than happy with the price we have paid for ours.

I've paid particular attention to the square footage of different properties as I am aware that people consistently say that new builds are smaller. However, in the price range, I've not really seen any properties in the area bigger. Ours is 969 sq ft, and in the same price range or slightly below (accepting the houses are not new), most are in the 750-800 sq ft range. It's a bigger jump to get up to say 1100, of another 50-100k.

Service charges - fair, ours is £240/annum so not extortionate of course that will likely go up. But in the home I am renting, it is over £500/annum, and as I say this was built nearly 20 years ago. Our electricity costs however will be less than they are now, in part due to the solar panels and in part due to the better efficiency of a newer house.

The lines are blurring between new and 'old'

librarian83

My partner and I are looking in an area where it is solely Barratt homes (unfortunately, but it is an excellent location for us which is the main factor). It is a big development where half are yet to be built and half are already built, and even being sold on resale.


Looking at the prices of the resale ones, they are now being sold for less than they were originally being bought for. You pay a premium for a new house which you may not recoup should you need to sell (especially with the jittery housing market at the moment).


I would say if you do really want a new house, don't buy off plan, wait until they are built and the market may have changed by then. There's always the option of buying the show home of the style you want too.


ps thanks for the tip about leasehold garages in this thread, that is certainly something I will be asking about!

mailmannz

SuboJvR wrote: »

Service charges - fair, ours is £240/annum so not extortionate of course that will likely go up. But in the home I am renting, it is over £500/annum, and as I say this was built nearly 20 years ago. Our electricity costs however will be less than they are now, in part due to the solar panels and in part due to the better efficiency of a newer house.

The lines are blurring between new and 'old'

I see what you are doing there

Perhaps a better delineation should have been "estate" vs "non-estate" houses, as in Lindon home type developments that have service charges etc vs homes that don't.

Problem is, your new home will still have the residents paying a service charge (which won't be £240 a year) in 20 years time too.

I do wonder though if we will end up in the situation where Parliament passes an act limiting the amount of time Service Charges can be levied on properties? Seems a cheap way out for councils to take all that lovely new council tax off the new residents generated by these new estates without having to provide any services like cleaning and maintaining all these new green areas their development plans require developers to include in their new builds.

Regards

Mailman

mailmannz

librarian83 wrote: »

ps thanks for the tip about leasehold garages in this thread, that is certainly something I will be asking about!

This might be nothing BUT the Barrat Home we had came with a lease hold garage. Sadly I didn't know enough about this at the time and it was a never ending pain in the backside dealing with the HomeGround!!!

These !!!!!! are utter cowboys! Do a search on them on the intraweb and you will quickly get an idea for what kind of shameless business these guys are in.

It would be nice if other lease holders out there acted with actual integrity but I suspect they are all pretty much the same.

Regards

Mailman

SuboJvR

Well part of the reason that service charges exist now is because councils aren’t taking on management of new roads, right? I’m not sure when that started but it’s not just a case of it being true for brand new properties...