Service charges on flats, how are they so high?

[Dano]

Just looking around at what is for sale locally and this flat popped up, seemed cheap for the area and no wonder with an eye watering annual service charge of £11,404.80 still, at least the ground rent at £40 for the year is reasonable I guess...

Check out this 2 bedroom apartment for sale on Rightmove

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Swan Street, Petersfield, GU32 for £250,000. Marketed by Henry Adams, Petersfield

www.rightmove.co.uk

48 Flats (I checked how many) at £11404.80 a year, £547,430.40 a year in service charges assuming they are all the same, somebody living the high life off of that, no idea how much it costs to maintain a large block of flats like that but it can't be anywhere near what the service charges total can it? Maybe I'm completely out of touch with maintenance costs lol...

 

[Dano]

Cladding? 24x7 fire watch can't be cheap.

It's brick and tile construction from what I can see.

 

[Dano]

The lease information has been removed from the listing, like most issues on a property it's probably the estate agent publishing the wrong information.

Maybe, there are another set of flats in the town that have been on the market for a while now (over a year in fact) that while not quite as bad are still around the 6k mark with only 51 years remaining on the lease. My gut is telling me that they have simply removed the cost so they can hide it from potential buyers as much as possible.

Check out this 2 bedroom flat for sale on Rightmove

2 bedroom flat for sale in High Street, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU32 for £230,000. Marketed by Homes Estate Agents, Petersfield

www.rightmove.co.uk