Buying a house (and renting)

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Moggy
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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Thu Mar 21, 2019 11:42 am

Super Dragon 64 wrote:I'm looking at buying a place with my fiancée and we're trying to work out the feasibility of a freehold flat - does such a thing even exist?


It can sort of exist, but there will always be common areas that you and other tenants will have responsibility for. If you and the other tenants own the freehold then you will probably need to set up a small company amongst yourselves to deal with the general upkeep of the property as well as things like the fire alarms, buildings insurance etc.

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OnlyShallow
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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by OnlyShallow » Sun Mar 24, 2019 4:55 pm

At last, moved into our new house :toot:

Whole process wasn't too stressful, mainly because my girlfriend did most of it

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Grumpy David
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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Grumpy David » Sun Mar 24, 2019 5:20 pm

Moggy wrote:
Super Dragon 64 wrote:I'm looking at buying a place with my fiancée and we're trying to work out the feasibility of a freehold flat - does such a thing even exist?


It can sort of exist, but there will always be common areas that you and other tenants will have responsibility for. If you and the other tenants own the freehold then you will probably need to set up a small company amongst yourselves to deal with the general upkeep of the property as well as things like the fire alarms, buildings insurance etc.



Commonhold never took off in England. Scotland has essentially Commonhold / Freehold flats.

Most lenders won't consider a fully Freehold flat in England since it would mean one flat owner is fully responsible for the entire building and grounds.

There is "Share of Freehold" which will still have an underlying lease but typically it is when a house has been chopped into 2 flats. The owners agree to "costs as and when" meaning usually no service charge and definitely no ground rent. Downside is that it's unlikely there will be a savings pot to cover the eventual roof replacement etc so rather than paying a bit each month, you could get a large bill as minor upkeep tends to get ignored until it's no longer minor and avoidable.

The calculations for Lease Extensions are based off the Ground Rent and usually council flats don't charge leaseholders Ground Rent so the cost of adding 99 years onto the lease is usually not nearly as painful as someone wanting to extend a lease with £300 per annum ground rent and a lease below 80 years.

In theory, a "Not for Profit" management company for the larger blocks of flats with leaseholders is more optimum than Commonhold as people would just be too lazy to fully engage with it.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Preezy » Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:17 pm

Thought this was interesting and worth sharing:
Almost half of the babies born in the UK are starting their lives in rented accommodation, according to a housing report from an insurance firm.

The Royal London says it is the first time in almost six decades a child is as likely to be born into a rented home, rather than owner-occupied.

Families with children privately renting have risen by 94% in a decade.

Becky O'Connor of Royal London says renting is "increasingly impossible to escape from" for young families.

The analysis shows how the so-called "generation rent" is becoming "generation parent", with 49.2% of children born to families who are renting, according to figures for 2016-17.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-47723672

edit: I see Moggy beat me to it in his Comments Thread, but as no one reads that rubbish I'm safe to keep my post ;)

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:32 pm

Preezy wrote:Thought this was interesting and worth sharing:
Almost half of the babies born in the UK are starting their lives in rented accommodation, according to a housing report from an insurance firm.

The Royal London says it is the first time in almost six decades a child is as likely to be born into a rented home, rather than owner-occupied.

Families with children privately renting have risen by 94% in a decade.

Becky O'Connor of Royal London says renting is "increasingly impossible to escape from" for young families.

The analysis shows how the so-called "generation rent" is becoming "generation parent", with 49.2% of children born to families who are renting, according to figures for 2016-17.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-47723672

edit: I see Moggy beat me to it in his Comments Thread, but as no one reads that rubbish I'm safe to keep my post ;)


If nobody reads it, then how did you know it was there? Admit it Preezy, you strawberry floating love my thread. :datass:

The idea of people renting isn’t a bad thing as long as rents are controlled and renters have proper rights. As things stand in this country, renting is awful.

There are going to be a lot of homeless pensioners in the future when their £200 a month pension doesn't cover the £900 per month rent.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by jawafour » Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:36 pm

I can relate to those figures. I've lived in my flat (south-east London area) for nearly twenty years and the ownership-type and resident mix has changed a lot in that time. Back in 1999 most residents owned the flat and tended to be couples and single folk in the age bracket 25 to 40. Fast forward to today and far more flats are rented, with residents spanning from circa 20 (generally, housing benefit folk) right up to about 70; and many flats are homing several children. You occasionally see people in flash motors (generally, brand new Range Rovers) driving in and these are flat owners who are renting several properties.

Rent prices are high, too; more than I pay for my mortgage. London pricing has got way out-of-hand even when wages have generally been stagnating. Buying any kind place in the area is now beyond the scope of most single people; you'd need a lot of money to go it alone. Oh, and the area is definitely nothing special, either; your typical densely packed, scrappy London suburb.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Drumstick » Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:17 pm

Moggy wrote:The idea of people renting isn’t a bad thing as long as rents are controlled and renters have proper rights. As things stand in this country, renting is awful.

Nailed it. And nothing will get done about it because those in a position to change this are making a killing by abusing it.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:21 pm

Drumstick wrote:
Moggy wrote:The idea of people renting isn’t a bad thing as long as rents are controlled and renters have proper rights. As things stand in this country, renting is awful.

Nailed it. And nothing will get done about it because those in a position to change this are making a killing by abusing it.


Going back to a council house system would fix it, but I’m not holding my breath.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by No:1 Final Fantasy Fan » Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:45 pm

My mortgage went through today. Can't believe I'm going to have my own flat in Greenwich Cuttysark. It's happened so quick as I only did the viewing about 2 weeks ago

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by pjbetman » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:07 pm

Moggy wrote:
Drumstick wrote:
Moggy wrote:The idea of people renting isn’t a bad thing as long as rents are controlled and renters have proper rights. As things stand in this country, renting is awful.

Nailed it. And nothing will get done about it because those in a position to change this are making a killing by abusing it.


Going back to a council house system would fix it, but I’m not holding my breath.



I dunno about your area, but in Northwest we have housing associations, who've basically taken over the council flats/houses (and bought more, i think?). Some of them own 20,000+ properties. They charge very low rents (a 1 bed flat is about £300 per month, for example), but you need to be on their list of classifications (single mother, elderly etc) or join a very long queue (of 2-3 years) to get one.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:56 pm

pjbetman wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Drumstick wrote:
Moggy wrote:The idea of people renting isn’t a bad thing as long as rents are controlled and renters have proper rights. As things stand in this country, renting is awful.

Nailed it. And nothing will get done about it because those in a position to change this are making a killing by abusing it.


Going back to a council house system would fix it, but I’m not holding my breath.



I dunno about your area, but in Northwest we have housing associations, who've basically taken over the council flats/houses (and bought more, i think?). Some of them own 20,000+ properties. They charge very low rents (a 1 bed flat is about £300 per month, for example), but you need to be on their list of classifications (single mother, elderly etc) or join a very long queue (of 2-3 years) to get one.


I’m lucky and own a place, but I know flats/houses that are council or housing association are like gold dust around here.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Jenuall » Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:47 pm

Not sure if it's a general policy nationwide but our previous house was a new build and the developers were required to sell an amount of it to the housing association so in theory there should always be a certain amount of "stock" in the system.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Qikz » Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:17 pm

Still haven't exchanged. Sent what I thought was all the documents and I'm missing one which I've now gotta rush to get signed Nd sent tomorrow. I just want to move and get it over with.

Please tell me that once I've exchanged I don't have to do anymore signing of documents lol

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:04 pm

I’ve got an appointment with a solicitor later today regarding the arseholes that own the building my flat is in.

After their threatening letter back in October last year, I have constantly been chasing them with no reply at all. I have 20 A4 pages of emails printed out to prove just how many times I have questioned them and over 130 pages of letters and correspondence going back to 2015. :lol:

The lady in the flat above mine has the same problem and so we are doing this as a joint effort. Hopefully the solicitor thinks we have a good case and we can start ending this mess.

And if the solicitors gives us bad news then at least we can move on from this.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Drumstick » Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:13 pm

Moggy wrote:I’ve got an appointment with a solicitor later today regarding the arseholes that own the building my flat is in.

After their threatening letter back in October last year, I have constantly been chasing them with no reply at all. I have 20 A4 pages of emails printed out to prove just how many times I have questioned them and over 130 pages of letters and correspondence going back to 2015. :lol:

The lady in the flat above mine has the same problem and so we are doing this as a joint effort. Hopefully the solicitor thinks we have a good case and we can start ending this mess.

And if the solicitors gives us bad news then at least we can move on from this.

Do let us know how it goes. Wishing you the best of luck.

Last edited by Drumstick on Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by That's not a growth » Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:46 pm

Yeah, good lucky moggy, gooseberry fool situation.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:54 pm

Cheers lads.

It was pretty positive. We set out what had happened and we both had copies of everything. The solicitor agreed that the property managers were in breach of the lease in several areas, had failed to follow the legal route with the Section 20 notice and are generally a shitty company (my words, not hers!).

She’s suggested a formal legal letter setting out the breaches. After that it would have to be court, but that’s not cheap! Solicitor charges £200 an hour and it could take 6 hours to research and write the letter. Court could easily be £10-15k! :dread:

I think we’ll go with the legal letter. As it’s a joint effort with the other leaseholder I would only be paying half the legal costs. £600 is a lot, but it’s better than the £10k the property management is claiming!

Court is a no no I think, I couldn’t risk losing £15k (well £7.5k!) on court costs and then having to pay £10k to the twats that “manage” the building.

So I’m cautiously optimistic, I’m just hoping the solicitors letter is enough to end this.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by jawafour » Fri Apr 05, 2019 7:11 pm

Moggy wrote:...It was pretty positive... I’m just hoping the solicitors letter is enough to end this.

Well played, Family Moggy + Neighbour! It sounds like you've kept excellent records of the communications and hopefully the letter from the solicitor will put things onto steady ground.

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Drumstick » Fri Apr 05, 2019 7:20 pm

Could you not approach one of those "no win, no fee" type solicitors if it does go to court?

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PostRe: Buying a house (and renting)
by Moggy » Fri Apr 05, 2019 7:32 pm

jawafour wrote:
Moggy wrote:...It was pretty positive... I’m just hoping the solicitors letter is enough to end this.

Well played, Family Moggy + Neighbour! It sounds like you've kept excellent records of the communications and hopefully the letter from the solicitor will put things onto steady ground.


Cheers, the property management are definitely in the wrong (on several counts!) so hopefully letter is enough.

Drumstick wrote:Could you not approach one of those "no win, no fee" type solicitors if it does go to court?


Maybe, I don’t know how good they are or what the court costs situation would be if I lost.

I’m not getting ahead of myself, we’ll see how a solicitors letter goes with the cowboys.


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