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Lambeth Flats Service Charges Double


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HOLA441

Sorry, no link as of yet.

This is an article running on the BBC London news this morning. An Owner Occuppier (John Sergeant) is at arms with Lambeth Council after his monthly service charge for the block of flats where he lives has doubled!

Expect to see a lot more of this as the recession really kicks in. It's for this reason alone I would stay clear of buying a flat, particularly new build. Even after you finished paying the mortgage, you've still got to shell out every month for the service charge.......forever! :ph34r:

Edited by bomberbrown
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HOLA442

It must be a leasehold flat which IMHO is a remnant ancient feudalistic land law.

If the owner occupier could get a share of the freehold or even commonhold with the other tenants then the this kind of thing could not happen.

Leasehold is not quite as bad as the "shared ownership" idea which really is insane! I actually know some poors sods who bought shared ownership of leasehold flats in London just to get a foot on the ladder.

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HOLA443
Sorry, no link as of yet.

This is an article running on the BBC London news this morning. An Owner Occuppier (John Sergeant) is at arms with Lambeth Council after his monthly service charge for the block of flats where he lives has doubled!

Expect to see a lot more of this as the recession really kicks in. It's for this reason alone I would stay clear of buying a flat, particularly new build. Even after you finished paying the mortgage, you've still got to shell out every month for the service charge.......forever! :ph34r:

A blocks of flats where some are OO and others are LA should be avoided like the plague. The LA will lavish taxpayers' money on their side and expect the OOs to fork out a matching share. They could easily bankrupt you by overpaying for some quite ordinary things, eg thousands of pounds for some new lighting for 'elf 'n' safety.

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HOLA444
It must be a leasehold flat which IMHO is a remnant ancient feudalistic land law.

If the owner occupier could get a share of the freehold or even commonhold with the other tenants then the this kind of thing could not happen.

Leasehold is not quite as bad as the "shared ownership" idea which really is insane! I actually know some poors sods who bought shared ownership of leasehold flats in London just to get a foot on the ladder.

Not possible if your fellow tenants are not owner occupiers, but renting from the council.

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HOLA445
Not possible if your fellow tenants are not owner occupiers, but renting from the council.

Very true and can also be a problem if the landlord doesn't want to go along with it and forces the owners to go to a tribuneral to establish the cost of the freehold.

Land Law requires a major overhaul and the first thing I would suggest it a huge tax on profits for people who don't own their property for a qualifying period (say 5 years), abolish leasehold and shared ownership, in statute define how much the maximum multiplier is for all people (3 X seems fair) who take out a mortgage, and ban people from owning more that 2 properties at a time.

Edited by Mykingdomforahorse
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HOLA446
A blocks of flats where some are OO and others are LA should be avoided like the plague. The LA will lavish taxpayers' money on their side and expect the OOs to fork out a matching share. They could easily bankrupt you by overpaying for some quite ordinary things, eg thousands of pounds for some new lighting for 'elf 'n' safety.

Absolutely correct. I have seen numerous examples. It has been in the press before. Why do people buy these things?

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HOLA447
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HOLA448
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HOLA449
ban people from owning more that 2 properties at a time.

Wouldn't work IMO you could just start a business and then that entity would own the properties. This idea sounds like communism, I am all for reasonable house prices, but I think if we are to live in a free and democratic society there will always people who have and people who have not. If the rich didn't own multiple houses they would start buying multiple other things, what would you limit next? 1 Car per household? Only 1 TV?

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HOLA4410
Sorry, no link as of yet.

This is an article running on the BBC London news this morning. An Owner Occuppier (John Sergeant) is at arms with Lambeth Council after his monthly service charge for the block of flats where he lives has doubled!

Expect to see a lot more of this as the recession really kicks in. It's for this reason alone I would stay clear of buying a flat, particularly new build. Even after you finished paying the mortgage, you've still got to shell out every month for the service charge.......forever! :ph34r:

Service charges would never double because of a recession etc... what happens when you take a leashold flat on is that you sign to pay a proportion of the running costs of the building ... say for instance 5%.... what has happened in a lot of these council run blocks is that they have sold say two thirds of the flats and then decide to do major works which should have been done years ago. On the one hand its a bit sneaky of them as sometimes you hear horror stories of people getting £40k bills etc, but equally the buyers should have thought through this before going into it... the best run blocks have a sinking fund.... they charge more each than they spend so that they keep some aside for major things like replacing the lift or putting a new roof on etc.

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HOLA4411
Wouldn't work IMO you could just start a business and then that entity would own the properties. This idea sounds like communism, I am all for reasonable house prices, but I think if we are to live in a free and democratic society there will always people who have and people who have not. If the rich didn't own multiple houses they would start buying multiple other things, what would you limit next? 1 Car per household? Only 1 TV?

Multiple houses is not the same as multiple other things. I agree that you cannot artificially limit peoples right to buy though.

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HOLA4412
Service charges would never double because of a recession etc... what happens when you take a leashold flat on is that you sign to pay a proportion of the running costs of the building ... say for instance 5%.... what has happened in a lot of these council run blocks is that they have sold say two thirds of the flats and then decide to do major works which should have been done years ago. On the one hand its a bit sneaky of them as sometimes you hear horror stories of people getting £40k bills etc, but equally the buyers should have thought through this before going into it... the best run blocks have a sinking fund.... they charge more each than they spend so that they keep some aside for major things like replacing the lift or putting a new roof on etc.

I never meant to imply that service charges go up because of recessions, merely that during recessions and when business/money is tight, these service providers tend to up their prices or start doing big work etc. I distinctly remember this was prevalent during the early 90's.

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HOLA4413
Sorry, no link as of yet.

This is an article running on the BBC London news this morning. An Owner Occuppier (John Sergeant) is at arms with Lambeth Council after his monthly service charge for the block of flats where he lives has doubled!

Expect to see a lot more of this as the recession really kicks in. It's for this reason alone I would stay clear of buying a flat, particularly new build. Even after you finished paying the mortgage, you've still got to shell out every month for the service charge.......forever! :ph34r:

The scum of the earth think they can live in the heart of London for next to nothing, subsidised by tax payers. They need to be priced out so that they find their true homes on this planet...

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HOLA4414
The scum of the earth think they can live in the heart of London for next to nothing, subsidised by tax payers. They need to be priced out so that they find their true homes on this planet...

Ha ha ha, London would be a ghost town if the priced out scum of the earth left

Edited by Tonkers
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HOLA4415
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HOLA4416
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HOLA4417
Not possible if your fellow tenants are not owner occupiers, but renting from the council.

The commonhold system devised by the government has NEVER been used. This is because no commercial freeholder would agree to it and if leaseholders have bought their freehold, they usually do it under the guise of a limited company.

Commonhold is the a complete load of rubbish and a waste of time and of course £££.

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HOLA4418
Very true and can also be a problem if the landlord doesn't want to go along with it and forces the owners to go to a tribuneral to establish the cost of the freehold.

Land Law requires a major overhaul and the first thing I would suggest it a huge tax on profits for people who don't own their property for a qualifying period (say 5 years), abolish leasehold and shared ownership, in statute define how much the maximum multiplier is for all people (3 X seems fair) who take out a mortgage, and ban people from owning more that 2 properties at a time.

How does any of this stop the need for the shared costs of maintaining a block of flats require management?

(I accept that there is a problem with this management, but the fact that the flats are leasehold does not create that problem)

tim

Edited by tim123
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HOLA4419

Share of freehold is much fairer than leasehold IMHO for residential properties. Having suffered from a landlord who made unreasonable demands, I am glad that the law permits the tenants to force the sale of the freehold for a fair price if there are enough of them.

I am not sure that commonhold has never been used. It's a new form of ownership and was only introduced under the CLRA 2002. It would be interesting to know if no one in the whole country has made use of it

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HOLA4420
Wouldn't work IMO you could just start a business and then that entity would own the properties. This idea sounds like communism, I am all for reasonable house prices, but I think if we are to live in a free and democratic society there will always people who have and people who have not. If the rich didn't own multiple houses they would start buying multiple other things, what would you limit next? 1 Car per household? Only 1 TV?

Moron Alert!

You can make more cars and TVs.

You can't make more land.

Sometimes I think people have completely missed the reason why house prices got out of control.

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