The dreaded "C" word

eidand

what I don't understand is why on earth are you charged for lift related expenses, when you live in a house. The rest I can understand.

cc58

eidand said:

what I don't understand is why on earth are you charged for lift related expenses, when you live in a house. The rest I can understand.

you and me both, from my understanding of it all, there isn't a differentiation between the houses and flats on the development, everything is a "dwelling" as its put in the lease and so everyone contributes. 

DoaM

blue_max_3 said:

DoaM said:

cc58 said:

 looking for a bit of advice. My partner and I bought a house shared ownership on a development in london 6 years ago. We then staircased in 2017 to 100% and as such bought the freehold to the property. There is still a ground rent of £10pm and a service charge of £100pm for the upkeep of the development.

How? The service charge I understand, but how can a freeholder be liable to ground rent? Rent for what - land they already own?

And before anyone says "search for the term fleecehold" ... I have. The results I've found talk about service charges/estate fees, not ground rent.

I am considering a shared owner ship property and having read the lease, it appears there is a 'head lease' and then a housing association who sub lease. Or at least that is what it looks like to me. My understanding is that the developer owns the head lease and leases the property to the HA. Who then grant individual leases.

If you've staircased (as the OP has) then there is no longer any lease ... you own the freehold. So, back to my question ... why is there any ground rent?

AdrianC

Certainly sounds like you're liable for 0.32% of the costs of the entire estate, including the flats.

DoaM

An observation ... if there are 210 properties on the estate (10 houses and ~200 flats), and you have a 0.32% share of the overall service charges, then you are paying less than average. (Average would be 0.476%). Therefore it is probable that the flat owners are paying a higher proportion of the service charges - which would seem fair as they will benefit more from the chargeable works.

cc58

DoaM said:

An observation ... if there are 210 properties on the estate (10 houses and ~200 flats), and you have a 0.32% share of the overall service charges, then you are paying less than average. (Average would be 0.476%). Therefore it is probable that the flat owners are paying a higher proportion of the service charges - which would seem fair as they will benefit more from the chargeable works.

I think this is correct, the higher percentages are also exacerbated by the fact that I believe 40% of the properties on the development are social housing. Of the 10 houses only 4 of them were sold the others are social housing and I guess a similar proportion of the flats. I guess this will come out in the wash eventually but id rather not pay any portion of the costs. I do feel sorry for the people in the flats who are going to have to foot a huge portion of the bill though.