Major Works on ex-Council Flat

Cyclemonkey1

We considered buying a n ex council flat but the vendor was very hazy about the potential cost of major works (they were just starting as we viewed). Seeing as the flat needed a lot of work on the bathroom and kitchen as well we walked away.


We actually bought a flat in a private share of freehold block that was undergoing a ten year improvement plan but it is carried out at a pace everyone can afford and we try and fund it though the sinking fund. The downside is that the communal areas look very shabby at the moment and will continue to do so for a few more years, but the upside is that the works are carried out at the pace everyone can afford.

MEM62

haseebmukhtar wrote: »

Any suggestions please, how should I proceed.

You pull out of the purchase.

Even if you were not facing the issue at this time you could do so at any point in the future. This is a risk with the council being the leaseholder an probably the reason why the current owner is trying to sell. Repairs will be undertaken as they see fit and will always be expensive. No consideration will be given to individual affordability.

hazyjo

goodwithsaving wrote: »

but an estimate is an estimate....I could estimate you'd get a bill for 5k and it'd actually be 20k.....

tbh that's often nearer the truth with ex-LA properties.


Friend of mine bought one with an estimate of several grand for the windows. Turned out to be nearer £15k each.

cjmillsnun

1.5k is small beer (less than 10%) of the purchase price. Walk and cut your losses. The works are defined as major. It is likely to be a large bill and may go up if the works have resulted in changes that will need to be made post Grenfell.

ThePants999

I bought a flat in an Enfield council block in 2005. That also had major works ongoing - some sort of improvements to the balconies, I never did figure out exactly what they were doing or why, even though they did it while I lived there. Cost was about £11,000 per flat, and our vendors didn't mention it up front. Solicitors found it during conveyancing, thank goodness; vendors claimed not to know about it - yeah, right. They agreed to knock most of it off the purchase price, fortunately, or we'd have pulled out.

We fortunately moved on before any other major works cropped up, but I'd never buy in a council block again.

AubreyMac wrote: »

However, what I will say about councils being a freeholder is that I do feel they are more 'honest' than a private freeholder.

They may well be "honest", but the other difference - which I consider to be much more important - is that they're also more profligate. The decision makers aren't spending their own money, nor do they have to run the projects themselves, so they're not making the right cost/benefit judgments. In our case, a residents' group had tried hard to get the works cancelled after an investigation showed they were totally unnecessary and a huge waste of money, but the council was unswayed.

pinklady21

I own a flat in an former council block. Built around 1970.
The year before I bought it, in 2006, there had been a common repairs programme during which the roof had been replaced.
Last year, the Council then said they wanted to instigate a programme of external cladding for better energy efficiency, and as part of the works the roof would be replaced.
As an owner I argued very strongly that a 10 year old roof should not require to be replaced. If it did, then questions need to be asked of the original contractors about the work they did 10 years previously.
In the end, while the Council officers finally agreed that the roof did not need to be replaced entirely, they then found someone who said that it did need some "running repairs" and guess what, these would cost almost as much as a full roof replacement.
As the Council are a majority owner in the block, the owners will always be outvoted. So we had to suck it up, despite feeling very aggrieved!
Councils seem to be a law unto themselves sometimes......