Maintenance fees in flats

[Rezrex]

Me and my bf live in a northern European country. I'm from here and my bf is from the UK. We have very casually looked at flats to buy. My bf seems to be baffled/outraged that the monthly maintenance charge fees are so big. He says that he has never experienced this in the UK.

So basically depending on the building you have to pay £200-400/month maintenance fee. This is a fee you pay for the housing cooperative and then mortgage is your Private business. When renting the flat owner pays the fee.

This fee covers the charges for the common areas (cleaning, electircity, water), heating (central heating), maintenance of the outdoor areas , maintenance of the flats (if my tap leaks, they will come), Building manager fees, Small renovations of the building and waste management to name a few.

In the UK I've lived in student and NHS accomodation so I have no idea if there is no similar thing in the UK. Do you have monthly payments when you live in a flat?

[Northernsoullover]

Yes there is an annual charge but you don't get half as much included as where you are.

[ouch321]

I pay circa 1400 a year service charge but it doesn't include mending things inside my flat. Outer London.

[Adamandtheaunts]

I don't think £200- £400 is unusual of you are in the UK. It depends what is included and how many properties it's split between. It's called service charge here.

[avidteadrinker]

Agree with PP that this is common with leasehold/share of freehold flats in the UK. Amounts vary wildly, the average service charge of my flat is about £1200 a year but I know someone who pays £3500 a year.
Things that vary it are age of building, whether you have a lift (costly to maintain) how many properties share the expenses etc

[Rezrex]

Yes, my question is if there are monthly maintenance fees. As we were looking at places he just seemed so confused by them. He was willing to admit that in buildings it might have maintenance fees £50-100/mo but what we have is a rip off. I personally had never thought about it and kind of assumed it is similar. But it does seem that the ammount is less (but I assume the money comes from somewhere else, as an example we don't have monthly council tax payments). I'll be sure to bring this up once he complains about it next time.

We occationally have a discussion about things that he feels are way more expensive here and then I point out that in the UK it is free because monthly payments are bigger etc.so this was something that internet had varying information about.

[CatAndHisKit]

In the UK the charges never include council tax payments, and in most cases, no central heating (though I lived in a C.London that did imclude heating - but tbh it's not great as you can't just turn it on when yo uwanted it, it's on from autumn to spring).
Council tax is high here so the extra 200 you pay, does cover tax and heating - so in the end it's similar chagres to the UK.

[CatAndHisKit]

Plus ground rent in the UK, around 120pa here on average.

[Mutunus]

SiL pays £800 a year service charge. She's just had a letter asking her for £17,000 towards for the external cladding

[JoJoSM2]

I’m in London and my experience has been that £1200/year is a standard service charge for a two-bed flat in a run-of -the-mill block. Places with concierges or gyms/swimming pools can be as much as 5-10k annually.
If they’re low, then that’s dodgy and as above, you can get a high unexpected bill.
You’d need to pay separately for any repairs inside your own flat.

I’m foreign and have found that many British people take issues with flats and service charges, often debating if you’re getting fleeced + prefer houses on principle. There’s definitely a cultural difference.