How common is fleecehold?

garnhamr

Can anyone shed light on how many homes in England are fleecehold?

caprikid1

The problem is that you will not get decent data, many lease rents were set at rates that effectively eroded with time, I believe my parents was £6 ever 6 months, they bought it in the end for neatness.

user1977

MultiFuelBurner said:

GTFY

Other search engines are available.

Doesn’t “fleecehold” usually refer to freehold properties with unusually onerous terms?

garnhamr

Yeah it's freehold but the council don't adopt the communial grounds, roads etc. 

This is from wikipedia

Fleecehold refers to the inclusion of onerous terms in the deeds of a freehold property or the lease of a leasehold property in the UK. The practice of fleecehold is known to be increasing in the UK, according to the results of FOI requests to the Land registry. At a minimum, tens of thousands of houses are affected, but it is unknown how quickly the number is increasing. There have been several proposals by elected officials and campaign groups to abolish or mitigate the practice, and it has been questioned in Parliament and the devolved assemblies.

A fleecehold property is usually taken to mean one that has deeds or a lease that allow a management company to impose a service charge on the householder. The service charge means that a payment must be made to the management company in return for the company performing certain items of maintenance on common land or amenities where the property is situated. This practice has obvious advantages for the local authority and property developer. The local authority does not need to adopt common land and amenities on the estate and does not bear the cost or responsibility for their upkeep. The developer in turn does not need to build any of these amenities (such as roads, pathways, flowerbeds and drainage systems) to the standards that local authorities require for them to be adopted. The owners of fleecehold properties still have to pay the full council tax on their property even though they have to additionally pay a private company to maintain the estate's amenities.

[Deleted User]

Every new estate built around here in the last 5 or so years seems to be fleecehold. It must be a lot nationally.

MultiFuelBurner

garnhamr said:

Yeah it's freehold but the council don't adopt the communial grounds, roads etc. 

This is from wikipedia

Fleecehold refers to the inclusion of onerous terms in the deeds of a freehold property or the lease of a leasehold property in the UK. The practice of fleecehold is known to be increasing in the UK, according to the results of FOI requests to the Land registry. At a minimum, tens of thousands of houses are affected, but it is unknown how quickly the number is increasing. There have been several proposals by elected officials and campaign groups to abolish or mitigate the practice, and it has been questioned in Parliament and the devolved assemblies.

A fleecehold property is usually taken to mean one that has deeds or a lease that allow a management company to impose a service charge on the householder. The service charge means that a payment must be made to the management company in return for the company performing certain items of maintenance on common land or amenities where the property is situated. This practice has obvious advantages for the local authority and property developer. The local authority does not need to adopt common land and amenities on the estate and does not bear the cost or responsibility for their upkeep. The developer in turn does not need to build any of these amenities (such as roads, pathways, flowerbeds and drainage systems) to the standards that local authorities require for them to be adopted. The owners of fleecehold properties still have to pay the full council tax on their property even though they have to additionally pay a private company to maintain the estate's amenities.

Cheers deleted that 👍

Every day's a learning day

eddddy

garnhamr said:

Can anyone shed light on how many homes in England are fleecehold?

'Fleecehold' is a bit of a loose, subjective term. What's behind your question?

For example, are you interested in the number of

• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge?
• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge - which do not have the remedies in s121 of the Law Property Act excluded?
• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge - which is currently over a a certain amount per year?
• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge - with roads, pavements, street lighting, communal play areas which are unadopted?

Or a combination of the above?
Or something else?

Having said that, even if you clarify what you mean, it will probably be impossible to find any meaningful data.


(Bear in mind that there may be some freehold houses with estate rentcharges, which are completely inoffensive. e.g  there is nothing or almost nothing to pay most years, and remedies in s121 of the Law Property Act are excluded.)

TBG01

How many people haven't read what they've signed up for or seemingly see it only as an issue when what they've signed up for comes into force?

Right or wrong, no one is forced to buy properties with service charges etc.

There's just as many if not more properties that aren't 'fleecehold'. 

MultiFuelBurner

To be honest fleecehold when we see service charges mentioned on Rightmove we skim past.

peter3hg

I'm happy paying £250ish a year for the maintenance on the estate I live on as the lesser of two evils.

Roads, pavements, drains/sewers and lightning are all adopted so the charge covers the parks, playgrounds, football pitches and other open spaces.

The local council has closed down a lot of the playgrounds they have responsibility for, so them not being adopted means the playgrounds aren't at risk of closure in the same way.

There is no rentcharge. Instead there is a restriction on the title so the management company can stop a sale until the homeowners account is up to date. The management company is jointly owned by all the homeowners so the maintenance company can be changed if they are too expensive or doing a bad job. It also means any surplus can he paid back to homeowners as it was last year.


Obviously in an ideal world everything would be adopted and maintained properly by the council, but that isn't the current world we live in with the state of local council funding.

garnhamr

eddddy said:

garnhamr said:

Can anyone shed light on how many homes in England are fleecehold?

'Fleecehold' is a bit of a loose, subjective term. What's behind your question?

For example, are you interested in the number of

• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge?
• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge - which do not have the remedies in s121 of the Law Property Act excluded?
• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge - which is currently over a a certain amount per year?
• Freehold houses subject to an estate rentcharge - with roads, pavements, street lighting, communal play areas which are unadopted?

Or a combination of the above?
Or something else?

Having said that, even if you clarify what you mean, it will probably be impossible to find any meaningful data.


(Bear in mind that there may be some freehold houses with estate rentcharges, which are completely inoffensive. e.g  there is nothing or almost nothing to pay most years, and remedies in s121 of the Law Property Act are excluded.)

I would like to know how common it is that councils don't adopt the street and the developers appoint a management company because i want to judge how badly it's going to affect the sale of my house.
Should i knock money off if there's other 3 bed semi's in the area that are as good as mine but don't have that service charge? 
How much? 
I've been quite upset over it because i wasn't told about it when i bought the place until the last minute and my mum was dying and i wanted to be there for her. So i didn't pull out of the purchase. So i feel hoodwinked and scammed. But then is £300 a year really a big deal? Not really i guess, depends on the buyer.