Fleece hold To Buy Or Walk Away

BobT36

[Deleted User] said:

You may find that you have limited options for broadband if it's a private road. You might get stuck with Virgin Media. No fibre. Even if it doesn't matter to you, it might be an issue when you want to sell.

Other than that, you can either risk it or not. Maybe fleecehold will be outlawed one day, maybe not.

A few at my work were stuck with ONLY "Fibrenest", Persimon Build's little monopoly. They actively prevented any other provider from operating in the area, and Fibrenest just didn't work lol, nor did it play nice with our work's VPN.

That's something to definitely watch out for. These new builds are filled with so many little traps. 

Postik

A lot of new builds have the road adopted by the council but still have an estate management charge for the green space which the council won't adopt.

I think the road not being adopted is even worse because there's a lot more to go wrong and more maintenance needed than simple grass cutting.

I was very fortunate to find a new build which had no estate management charge but they are as rare as hen's teeth around here.

The whole fleecehold thing is a complete scam making the developers and the councils better off, whilst shifting the cost and liability of everything onto the homeowner.

Would I partake in this? Yes if I liked the house enough. But it's a risk and not something I was happy about. Bear in mind it will not be capped and you'll have no say or control over what it increases to.

If the road collapses and they increase your charge to £1000 a year there's nothing you can do. If the road doesn't collapse and they increase your charge to £1000 a year there's not much you can do. Take them to court and win, and they can put their legal fees through the business as an expense and perversely you'll end up paying for them via your estate management fee.

So bear in mind if you go ahead you're giving a third party free access to your wallet.

You should also check the charge is enforced via a deed of covenant and NOT an estate rent charge. The latter would most likely require a deed of variation to amend it if any future purchaser wanted to buy the property with a mortgage and that may or may not be easy to achieve.

I think estate rent charges were more common 15-20 years ago so this is probably an important detail to check. I think most estate charges from the last 5-10 years are more likely to be done via a covenant.

BobT36

I also read that even where the council DOES want to adopt the areas, the management companies can have it in your contracts that force you to oppose the council, even when that's not what you want to do! 

Absolute bonkers, all for selling the income as "investment packages". Grr. Another instance of Rip off Britain. 

masjntt1977

Thank you everyone for your replies, really appreciate your thoughts, advice and experiences x

chanz4

we had an estate with a charge, been fair house was freehold as well was around £160 a year 

masjntt1977

Thank you 

daveyjp

If the road is unadopted you also need confirmation of the status of any drainage and streetlighting.

angelasocks

Hi

Could you do some door knocking see if the neighbours can tell you anything, I just did this with a leasehold house I was buying and was able to get a bit more info from people on the same street.