FTB- Management Company on Freehold Property causing huge delay

Blake011

Hi Guys,

Any help is greatly appreciated we have reached a point where we are both so done with the whole process and not sure what our options are!

I’ll try to keep this brief and simple. Essentially we had our offer accepted on a Freehold house back in mid July. It should have been very straight forward, theres no chain, we rent And are FTB and sellers where moving to rent on the 30th Sept. Our rental contract was up 21st Sept so thought would all work out well.

We got our mortgage sorted very fast and everything was going very smoothly until we got the results of the survey back. The whole development the property is on is looked after by a ‘management company” who you have to pay money to on a yearly basis which can go up or down to maintain a park and the area. property is also subject to a ‘rentcharge’ (If you google this its honestly the biggest load of !!!!!!!!) despite being a freehold.

We where unhappy with this and feel like we should have been told this by estate agents at the start as my partners dad actually asked this and EA lied (this has been a frequent occurrence). toyed with pulling out but decided to continue as we really love the house. And after a couple of weeks we found out the annual charge in total is roughly £150 a year and payments are all up to date so we was cool to carry on.

However our solicitor is still waiting for answers from this management company on 4 enquiries they sent over on 5th September. Ive been chasing non stop, as have EAs and the sellers as they have now moved to their rental so house is sitting there empty.

I lost it a little bit earlier with our solicitors as they havent been chasing I have been doing that, on top of now having to be out of our rental tomorrow and moving in with my in laws which is really less than ideal, im extremely stressed and at the end of my tether.

Solicitors called management company earlier and basically the remaining enquiries are just being bounced around between the various companies involved (we would pay all the money yearly to one and they pay the rentcharge to the other company) and no one is really answering them. I dont really know what else we can do at this point. There is very limited time I can cope at the in laws and I have no where else to go.

This whole process has been exhausting and stressful, solictors on both sides been awful, EAs have lied multiple times and just seem to make stuff up, our current landlord hasnt been very nice for our last few weeks and we have had to move all our stuff to various locations so me my partner and two dogs can live in her parents box room for the foreseeable future! Plus moving to a new area is daunting etc. We are considering pullling out to find something else before mortgage offer runs out or just renting in the new area for a bit as this just doesnt feel like its going to happen!

Now ive googled where this management companies offices are and I will be in the area on Saturday. Can i turn up there and demand someone deals with the enquiries whilst im there in front of them?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

anselld

What is the nature of the enquiries and are they about issues you are at all concerned about?

Solicitors have a habit of asking a long list of picky questions that nobody else involved has the slightest interest in. In fact the answers don't even get passed on to the client in most cases.

Have you asked your Solicitor what enquiries are outstanding and what would be the risk involved in proceeding without a response?

AdrianC

Blake011 wrote: »

Now ive googled where this management companies offices are and I will be in the area on Saturday. Can i turn up there and demand someone deals with the enquiries whilst im there in front of them?

You can try... But I doubt anybody will be there at the weekend. Except, maybe, a minimum-wage bored security guard.

How about phoning them during business hours today, instead?

Blake011

Thanks for replying.

Honestly the outstanding enquiries are hard for me to understand (sorry FTB and this whole process has been very confusing I wish they would just break things down in to lay mans terms) it sounds like clarification on stuff in the transfer, something about a restriction and a certificate of compliance, and a deed of covenant.

I will ask today if it is possible to proceed without the answers, thank you!

Blake011

I’ve asked if I can ring them myself and solictors have heavily advised me not to! but yes your right this is probably more sensible

eddddy

Blake011 wrote: »

I lost it a little bit earlier with our solicitors as they havent been chasing I have been doing that...

Generally, solicitors don't do chasing. It's not part of their role.

It should be the EA that does the chasing (they call it 'sales progression').

Assuming they get paid on completion, it's in their interests to get a sale closed asap.

Blake011 wrote: »

Now ive googled where this management companies offices are and I will be in the area on Saturday. Can i turn up there and demand someone deals with the enquiries whilst im there in front of them?

It's very, very unlikely that a management company will discuss anything with a prospective buyer - by letter, email, phone or in person.

Firstly, there are data protection issues; secondly, they won't really know who you are; and thirdly, if a house is for sale, they could get inundated with questions from prospective buyers.

So they will generally only discuss things with the seller (and the seller's solicitor).

So you (and/or the EA) need to chase the seller.

You need to ask the seller if your questions have been passed to the management company and you need to tell the seller to chase their management company to provide answers to your questions, because if they don't the sale is likely to fall apart.

AdrianC

Blake011 wrote: »

Honestly the outstanding enquiries are hard for me to understand (sorry FTB and this whole process has been very confusing I wish they would just break things down in to lay mans terms) it sounds like clarification on stuff in the transfer, something about a restriction and a certificate of compliance, and a deed of covenant.

Your solicitor should be more than happy to translate it into plain English for you.

The restriction is probably something on the existing Land Registry record that says it can't be transferred without the approval of a third party - probably a lender who's owed money by the vendor.

Certificate of compliance is going to be proof that something about the property meets the appropriate regs - doors/windows or the like?

A covenant is a restriction on what can be done on the land/in the property, placed by somebody who had an interest years ago, maybe when the land was sold for development. It's quite probably outdated and totally irrelevant. It might be there from the developer, saying that things like the frontal appearance need to be consistent. To mean anything, the person who has the benefit of the covenant needs to enforce it - and that's vanishingly unlikely unless it's a fairly new-built place on an estate the developer's still working on.

But your solicitor can give the detail, and explain what the delay is.

OldMusicGuy

Welcome to the world of "fleecehold". I've lived with this for 20 years. Sadly there's nothing you can do, it is a waste of your time going to the management company directly.

Like Eddddy said, get your sellers involved. They should have a copy of the deed of transfer and the agreement with the management company which will detail all the charges and covenants, and should be able to provide information that may help resolve some of the questions.

We have just sold our house which is in exactly this situation. I provided a copy of the deed of transfer and management agreement to our solicitor as soon as we started the process and made sure that our solicitor was getting what he needed from the management company. I knew this could be a delaying factor. Your sellers need to push a bit harder from their side to get the management company to proceed.

You should read the current management agreement. You need to watch out for escalating management fees as although the annual charge is £150 at the moment, this will likely go up because the management company may well have a clause in the agreement that lets them increase their annual fee. You need to make sure you are comfortable with that.

daveyjp

The covenants could be key as they can hide all manner of nasties where fleecehold is concerned.

Remember there is no consumer regulation protecting freeholders tied to management charges.

£150 now could be £1000 next year, unless you have a well written contract in place.

SallyAnneBooth

Fleecehold = avoid if possible