What is a 'Fleecehold' House

Larac

I live in a Village where we have a couple of new build developments added to the village,  My observation is that both developments pay a maintenance charge and are better maintained than the rest of the village which under the Councils maintenance regime.  When they do pass over to the council for maintenance you guarantee they wont be maintained in the same way.

NameUnavailable

daivid said:

'fleecehold' is where the property is leasehold, with a lease that can be raised greatly in future (costing the homeowner a lot and potentially making the property unsellable).

Maintenance charges are very different but you will still want to consider potential future costs e.g. how much might you have to pay if… ..the roads all need resurfacing/whatever other potential large costs apply to the estate 

No, a lease is leasehold. A lease can't be 'raised'. It can be extended (for a cost). Fleecehold is a freehold house that has service charges for communal grounds as it sits on private land.

JReacher1

Johnnyh123 said:

I find it complete madness that people defend it.  When a new build estate is set up the council are getting the tax income without the expense.  The expense is being passed on to the consumer.  It’s another example of rip off Britain.  The fact that these charges are basically unregulated should be setting alarm bells off for people but there seems to be a bit of Stockholm syndrome kicking in.  In about 20-30 years (or maybe less) there’s going to be a “scandal” on the level of cladding where there’s thousands of unadopted roads falling into disrepair that bin lorries etc refuse to go down and require residents to fork out thousands to fix which is what your council tax goes towards. These houses will become unsellable.  It’s all foreseeable big it’s essentially another stealth tax these governments we’ve had for decades get away with passing on to people unfairly.

The council tends to adopt the roads on new build estates so this wouldn’t be a problem. The maintenance charge covers other things which the council won’t deal with e.g maintenance of common areas, estate boundaries. New build estates like to have areas of green space to make the estates look nice. Don’t think the council should have to take over the maintenance of these spaces.  

Choirgrl

Section62 said:

Norman_Castle said:

maton91 said:

"Fleecehold" isn't a type of ownership. Fleecehold is a term for a property with extortionate terms or costs. It describes a fleehold or lease where the holder is being fleeced.

Is that something like a property infested with biting parasitic insects?

Maybe this thread has the answer to what fleecehold is 🐑🐑

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6367763/neighbours-have-moved-2-sheep-into-back-garden

peter3hg

I imagine it varies by development, but where I live you do get a lot of extra facilities for the maintenance charge.
The road and pavements are adopted but there is about £150 a year maintenance charge, for the parks and other green spaces.

The difference to the older council maintained estates however is the amount of facilities we have.
There are four large play parks, 8 or 9 smaller play parks, big open areas with ponds and paths, 5 full sized football pitches with changing rooms and a 5-a-side/basketball hardstanding pitch.

This is on a development of about 900 houses. In contrast the older council maintained estates of similar sizes might have one small play park and a couple of small fields.

Personally I'm happy to pay that £150 a year as it is a much nicer place to be. I'm not sure I would want to live on an estate with unadopted roads and pavements though.

hidden_sacrifice

JReacher1 said:

Johnnyh123 said:

I find it complete madness that people defend it.  When a new build estate is set up the council are getting the tax income without the expense.  The expense is being passed on to the consumer.  It’s another example of rip off Britain.  The fact that these charges are basically unregulated should be setting alarm bells off for people but there seems to be a bit of Stockholm syndrome kicking in.  In about 20-30 years (or maybe less) there’s going to be a “scandal” on the level of cladding where there’s thousands of unadopted roads falling into disrepair that bin lorries etc refuse to go down and require residents to fork out thousands to fix which is what your council tax goes towards. These houses will become unsellable.  It’s all foreseeable big it’s essentially another stealth tax these governments we’ve had for decades get away with passing on to people unfairly.

The council tends to adopt the roads on new build estates so this wouldn’t be a problem. The maintenance charge covers other things which the council won’t deal with e.g maintenance of common areas, estate boundaries. New build estates like to have areas of green space to make the estates look nice. Don’t think the council should have to take over the maintenance of these spaces.  

The council can still be the management company though. That’s what our area is, when the development finished and the roads were adopted by the council, we still got an annual charge invoices but it was paid to the council and it covers maintaining the parks, street lamps and cutting the grass, etc. although the council have capped it at £120 so we would never pay more than that

htcclub

maton91 said:

Hello all,

On another thread I am buying a hosue that has an annual grounds maintenance charge of around £60 a year. I understand this is for the upkeep of greenery, roads etc... and everyone on the estate pays it

I have recently heard the term 'fleecehold' which seems to be where one owns a freehold property but still pays additional charges to the developer

Is my future arrangement not classed as fleecehold and if so why not please?

Thanks in advance

Didnt read whole thread, but some banks wont give you a mortgage on these because being in arrears on estate fees can (on some contracts) forfeit the house. YES forfeit the house. Also these fees can go up, some contracts have a doubling every so often, no recourse to query the fees like with a proper leasehold. 

[Deleted User]

maton91 said:

Hello all,

On another thread I am buying a hosue that has an annual grounds maintenance charge of around £60 a year. I understand this is for the upkeep of greenery, roads etc... and everyone on the estate pays it

I have recently heard the term 'fleecehold' which seems to be where one owns a freehold property but still pays additional charges to the developer

Is my future arrangement not classed as fleecehold and if so why not please?

Thanks in advance

It might be £60 today, but it may go up in future. Often it starts low so you buy thinking it's fine, but after a while it's getting quite expensive and nobody wants to buy your property.

It's basically a scam that developers use to get extra profit from houses they sell. Whatever they charge, it would be cheaper to pay for the work to be done yourself (or do it yourself). The caveat is that in the UK people care little for their environment, if they don't own it then it's somebody else's problem and they can just ignore it as the drive past, since their estate was built around cars and miles from anything. So it's not that service charges don't have a useful purpose, it's just that they are rarely set up with the good of the residents in mind.