Do freehold houses have to pay a service charge

OldMusicGuy

You should have been made well aware of this when you bought the house. Your solicitor should have pointed this out to you and it will have been in the documents you signed. You need to go back and read your transfer document (TP1/TR1) and see what you signed up to. This will confirm what you are paying for, or if there is nothing about paying estate maintenance fees, then you should query it,

However, the vast majority of new build estates have service charges for the common areas for freehold houses. All the big name builders will generally have this, but a small local developer/builder may not. So most likely you will have to pay it and the penalties for not paying can be quite severe. 

Neil49

Your solicitor should have pointed this out to you during the purchase process. We are in a new build and we were told more than once that charges were payable for maintenance of the communal area. If you don't pay you will probably find that when you come to sell your property some time in the future that the sum owing will have to be paid before the sale can be completed. 

jimbog

are you sure it's not a rentcharge?

scottishblondie

As others have said it's pretty common with new build estates.  The responsibility to pay these charges should be documented in your deeds.  Councils simply do not want to take on the responsibility of the green spaces on these estates when their funds are already so stretched.  We had to pay £10 a month in our previous property, with a few top up bills as necessary.  This went towards grass cutting, tree/hedge trimming, weeding and the maintenance and repair of common structures like walls and fences that didn't belong to a particular plot.  I can't say I minded it as the common areas were well maintained, but we were well aware of it when we purchased the property.  

Mickey666

Could be worse, you could be having to pay £300 every month for fire patrols . . . 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55219607

diggingdude

Thrugelmir said:

Seems fair that users of the space pay for the upkeep. Rather than other less fortunate council rate taxpayers. 

Absolutely, if you can ban those from other areas using it but you can't. My brother's estate charges, teenagers from a nearby estate keep trashing the playground. Why should those teens get to use this playground they pay nothing towards?

Tiglet2

diggingdude said:

Thrugelmir said:

Seems fair that users of the space pay for the upkeep. Rather than other less fortunate council rate taxpayers. 

Absolutely, if you can ban those from other areas using it but you can't. My brother's estate charges, teenagers from a nearby estate keep trashing the playground. Why should those teens get to use this playground they pay nothing towards?

Yep, my daughter's estate is the same!

velocatus

This whole issue is blowing up like a balloon and is the next big scandal akin to that of "toxic leasehold". BUYER BEWARE. It goes like this. The house builder's sales agent or estate agent will casually mention a "maintenance or service charge" of a couple of hundreds of pounds a year on the FREEHOLD property you are purchasing. The devil is in the detail. When I looked into what I was intending to purchase it transpired that the external "management company" were, in fact, going to be responsible for the roads, street lights, public open spaces etc. on the (relatively small) development. The local authority were not going to adopt the highway or street lights etc. Further, there was even a "private drainage system" for hundreds of metres prior to connecting to a "United Utilities" adopted sewer further down. AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO fraught with possible future legal issues and cost. On this development, it transpired the initial annual service charge was £575/annum - and remember, there is absolutely nothing to stop annual increases (as much as they like) unless this is within contract (e.g. CPI increase annually clause). You've bought your FREEHOLD property but it's sitting within a MANAGED ESTATE, where they have you well and truly hooked in. EVEN WORSE you'll still, of course, pay full council tax despite not receiving many of the usual services that everyone else does when they pay their council tax (e.g. street lighting, road repairs, gulley cleaning etc.). I could go on for ages (e.g. the trick they use to tie the management company into your title deeds - DON'T FALL FOR IT!) but essentially unless people (AND CONVEYANCERS) get wise to what is going on here there are some real horror stories waiting to unfold. It's almost on the verge of institutional corruption e.g. Rip-off local authority demands 10% "green open PUBLIC space" at planning stage on the development - and then has the cheek to not adopt it (and the roads in many cases) and asks the freeholders to pay for it. Local yobs use the space for drinking and general nuisance (it's public space remember) and the council/police do nothing. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING - AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. I understand some lenders are now getting wise and refusing to lend against homes on estates utilising "fleecehold" - as it is now being termed.