New build housing management companies are different from leasehold management companies. My new-build is freehold, not leasehold.
New Build - Garden issues + Estate fees
- Thread starter MatsyLR
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New build housing management companies are different from leasehold management companies. My new-build is freehold, not leasehold.
Arguably if you are worried about standards and houses being cared for then one that has just been thrown together by a bunch of subcontractors and the builder is keen to just get sold ASAP may not be the best choice. You can't see it until it is built so you don't know what the final standard will be, although admittedly you do have the benefit of snagging.
OK this is starting to make sense now. You are effectively getting a nicer house for £122k than you could otherwise afford with the caveat that when you sell it will also be at a discount. So would work great if you plan to stay there long term. Were the other houses you were visiting that people wanted "stupid money" for on at ~£122k or ~£175k? Cos a market value house is always going to look like silly money in comparison to one with a 30% discount.
Being surrounded by 4 bed detached houses is a good thing not bad thing. It means your area will be more desirable and there is a school of thought that "rich" people in 4 bed houses are likely to make better neighbours than say living in a rented tower block (I realise this sweeping generalisation may offend some people and there will always be exceptions, wealth is not directly correlated to personality/behaviour etc). I live in a terraced house with 4 bed detached homes opposite and sure there is a bit of envy thinking "wish I'd bought one of those instead" it's certainly better than where I lived before next to cheap housing with "oh great my psycho neighbour has smashed her own windows again".
I did have a nosey at another development not too far away and it does look like a nice area as you might expect being "expensive" houses. They also seem to have a good reputation compared to some big developers.
It would be a house that I would have no plans to move away from, its about the same size as the current house I'm in that has 3 adults living it in and very close to work (about 5min drive if that). The houses I've been looking at top out at the £130k mark as that is the top of end of my budget (North East - Sunderland/Gateshead/Newcastle area). I've had 3 offers accepted on houses over the past few months and they all fell through for one reason or another. When I say "stupid money" I mean people wanting £130k+ for an ex-council house that to me looks like a dump and has had no care whatsoever to keep things nice. I've been to see some houses that look nice in pictures but once you get in you can see loads of issues (my dads a surveyor so he comes with me and points out lots of problems). Many of the ones I have made offers on, I just get outbid along with the bank devaluing the property by a good 10k+ when they value it.
The whole process is just tiresome specially with a restricted budget.
My concern is when it eventually comes time to sell in the distant future I'm held back by the 30% discount as I have to pass that onto the next person as they also have to qualify and maybe stupidly high estate management fees that will make selling very hard. Waiting on a reply back from the developer about who the company is that will be managing the estate etc.
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With ex-council houses you are typically paying for the size rather than the finish and presentation. So a £130k dump might be bigger than an equivalent property with more kerb appeal / show home feel.
Coming back on topic this sort of thing would worry me a bit, as mentioned you'll need to look into flood risk but I just wouldn't have confidence that proper drainage measures would have been implemented. But I guess it would all be fixable if it turned out to be a problem, that 30% discount would be a lot to pass up.
Coming back on topic this sort of thing would worry me a bit, as mentioned you'll need to look into flood risk but I just wouldn't have confidence that proper drainage measures would have been implemented. But I guess it would all be fixable if it turned out to be a problem, that 30% discount would be a lot to pass up.
Had an email from the developer after I enquired about the estate management company along with a breakdown.
Seems its Kingston property services operating under the name of Open Spaces. There trust pilot reviews are for the most part negative. Undecided if the risk is worth it, its supposed to be getting regulated soon but who knows what that will entail.
Seems its Kingston property services operating under the name of Open Spaces. There trust pilot reviews are for the most part negative. Undecided if the risk is worth it, its supposed to be getting regulated soon but who knows what that will entail.
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Soldato
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I'm like some others on here, I dont get the hatred for new builds. They are different
Ive lived in a 1890s house, a early 1950s, a 1980s, a 2000, and a 2005 and i can say for sure the maintenance gets less as the houses get newer
The newer they are typically the better insulated they will be
Older will be more solid but the older they get the more likely you are to find nasties in materials (lead paint, asbestos etc) and also wierd sizes when you get proper old
Size is deffo a factor but im not convinced in days of high energy, large windows (even if well insulated) high ceilings etc are a good thing
Ive got estate fees. Whilst annoying they arent that bad to suffer, what annoys me most is 50% or so its things like directors insurance, liability insurance etc that really if the council was doing it it would be far more efficient
Ive lived in a 1890s house, a early 1950s, a 1980s, a 2000, and a 2005 and i can say for sure the maintenance gets less as the houses get newer
The newer they are typically the better insulated they will be
Older will be more solid but the older they get the more likely you are to find nasties in materials (lead paint, asbestos etc) and also wierd sizes when you get proper old
Size is deffo a factor but im not convinced in days of high energy, large windows (even if well insulated) high ceilings etc are a good thing
Ive got estate fees. Whilst annoying they arent that bad to suffer, what annoys me most is 50% or so its things like directors insurance, liability insurance etc that really if the council was doing it it would be far more efficient
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We didn't have to pay for turf on our new build, but given the option and knowing what I know now, I would have taken the option to have no turf to get some drains put in from day one. We're on clay soil and in the winter it becomes a bit of a bog so this would help, but I've taken good care of our grass so it's lovely and green come mid-spring up until winter (first tlc on the lawn this past week). If there's a slope in any direction then that should be sorted before there's a blade of grass.
I enjoy the snag videos but it's unfair to label all new builds as bad given that every development site has different contractors on site and the quality ultimately comes down to them. We've been here 6 years and I would struggle to list more than 5 issues we've had (David Wilson Homes).
I think our estate fees are around the £120 mark. We don't mind paying it but they've remained roughly the same since we bought here so I sympathise with people on an estate with rising charges. They tend to all communual/grass areas, all of the bushes/plants/trees around the estate, and do a general clean up. In the winter it's probably once a month, in spring/summer it must be every two weeks or so. We have the option of starting our own management company as residents where I assume we would source our own contractors or do it ourselves so there's always that option if costs get too crazy?
I enjoy the snag videos but it's unfair to label all new builds as bad given that every development site has different contractors on site and the quality ultimately comes down to them. We've been here 6 years and I would struggle to list more than 5 issues we've had (David Wilson Homes).
I think our estate fees are around the £120 mark. We don't mind paying it but they've remained roughly the same since we bought here so I sympathise with people on an estate with rising charges. They tend to all communual/grass areas, all of the bushes/plants/trees around the estate, and do a general clean up. In the winter it's probably once a month, in spring/summer it must be every two weeks or so. We have the option of starting our own management company as residents where I assume we would source our own contractors or do it ourselves so there's always that option if costs get too crazy?
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The idea of the council not taking ownership of the common land I find disgusting. They are quick enough to take the council tax. They should either reduce their council tax or adopt the land. The government needs to act.
A little story about a housing development outside of Wilmslow in Cheshire, where the houses started at £600,000 and they had an absentee management company. The houses were built around 10 years ago. The development is beautiful, with big houses, Bentleys / Range Rovers / Astons and more importantly electric gates. In the centre of the development is a beautiful ornate lake and a small building next to it, that everyone ignored. One morning a few of the residents woke up to find that their electric gates werent working and the large pillars that they were attached to, seemed a little 'wonky' So after a bit of investigation she house owners finally track down the management company as the houses with gates cant even open them manually, as the gates have started digging into the drives. A surveyor is called out and its found that the ground has become 'wet' and the pillars holding up the gates are sinking. After further investigation around the 'lake' they finally make it into the little building, which it turns out is a pump house and all of the alarms are going off. Inside the pump house are 5 large pumps, which are supposed to be for continual de-watering of the ground, which then pumps into the lake, which then goes to a storm sewer. Except nobody maintained the pumps and one by one, they failed and slowly the ground water rose and the pillars on the gates subsided. Eventually all of the pumps were replaced and after a month or 2 the ground returned to normal (ish) and all of the gate pillars had to be rebuild on new foundations. The residents took over the management company. The development had been built on marshy ground, but had been de-watered to stabilize it. Always worth checking what was there before the houses were built and what the management company if guaranteed to look after.
This is the important part of that story. Unlike leasehold management companies, the residents / owners can take over the business or pass the site management to a different management agent if they so wish, and if nescessary take legal action against the previous management company if they were embezzling funds / not doing the contracted work.
Soldato
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I have been paying estate charges for about 6 years. We moved house recently, so not sure how those will change, but the initial estimates were high. Each year, the price of the estates charges actually dropped. Eventually the builder had to pass the estates side of things on to the residents, at which point you of course have a lot more say and the drive to get the prices down is much greater.
So I wouldn't make my decision based on that personally.
So I wouldn't make my decision based on that personally.
I am the 'chief executive' of our small management company (6 properties). We pay for liability insurance, cleaning shared driveway every few years, accounts for the company, GDPR fee, and that's about that. The advantage for having homeowners directly 'owning' the company is that we are far more able to do things quickly when required than waiting on a management company to eventually get around to maintaining any shared areas. etc. It also means that we don't pay anyone to organise the works required either. We pay around 10 per month that builds up sot hat cleaning, etc can be paid when needed.