Please come and commiserate with me - anothe buyer pulls out

[IlanaK]

I am not asking for advice - I am in an impossible siutation. But I am just feeling sorry for myself tonight as our buyer has pulled out. And this is not the first one either. We have been trying to sell on and off for more than a couple of years.

We live in a mansion block with huge service charge issues. Everyone loves our flat, the location is to die for, but no-one wants to take on the issues - and I don't blame them!

I feel like I am stuck here forever

[ButterbeerAndLemon]

Are the issues related to the managing agents or are they inherent in the block whoever is managing it?

[Frizbe]

{{{Hugs}}} that's not good, really hope you can get another buyer who doesn't pull out soon. Anyway you could rent it in the meantime and move on yourselves? (sure you've thought this through already though)

[IlanaK]

Mismanagment in the past which meant no reserve funds. HUGE (6 million pounds) major works over the last three years so huge service charges. Continuing high costs. Bad feeling between landlord/managing agents and residents. Etc etc. People just don't want to take on the service charges - and I don't blame them.

[IlanaK]

Not sure what you mean about renting? If we can't sell, we are still liable for the enormous service charges so could no way afford to move out and rent.

[sweetfall]

can you offer to pay service charges for the first 3 years

[IlanaK]

We couldn't afford to. Current service charges are around £16-18 thousand pounds. They will drop, but probably only to around 10 thousand. We already accepted a £50,000 cut in the asking price and the asking price is low to reflect the service charges anyway.

[ButterbeerAndLemon]

And because of the mismanagment and the service charges not enough residents could afford to buy the freehold? Have been there... eventually sold for well under what it "should" have sold for (and this was a buoyant market) just to get out.

What about the "right to manage" legislation? That way at least you could get the managing agents out and start to rebuild things. But that's a medium-long term strategy and won't help you with your immediate problem.

[pinkteddy]

£16 - £18K per year? How much do the managing agents charge for their services?!

[IlanaK]

Yes, we are going for right to manage. It is going to LVT as the landlord says there is more than 25% commercial units which would mean we are not allowed to do RTM. But the residents disagree. It has also been to LVT twice over the service charges. They are high because the works needed doing - no one disputes that. When we bought here, the charges were £6000 a year which we thought was very high. That was before any major works.

[IlanaK]

There is no solution to this - I wasn't looking for one. Just feeling crappy about it all.

[pinkteddy]

Whereabouts are you - is it in London? Presume it must be for those high charges. Can you rent it out and move somewhere? Who is the director - is it one of the residents? How about looking for another company to manage it - who might charge you a lot less money. You could look at other blocks in the area to see who is managing them and how much they charge. How many flats are there in the block? My sister is in the managing agents business and I have never seen sums that high before!

[CramItUpYourCramHole]

for you. In a chain myself at the mo. stress city.

[IlanaK]

Yes, central london. £6000 is not at all unusual for the type of block we are in around here. But we all have to share the cost of the major works (for which there was no reserve fund) so that is why the charges are so high. The major works have cost around £6 million pounds. It is not about mismanagemnet really (though are managing agents are crooks). It really is about the works.

Again, how can I rent out? I would need to pay rent (high around here) and also the services charges here.

[pinkteddy]

But £6 million. They could have rebuilt the block for that! (obviously I have no idea what your block looks like but it sounds like an incredible amount of money.)

Would your local council be interested in renting it from you? You might be surprised what they would be prepared to pay. That would still leave you struggling to buy somewhere else I suppose but you might be able to get another mortgage if council would sign up for a few years.

[IlanaK]

Thanks, but there is no way we could afford to rent it out and rent somewhere ourselves (without going into all my financial details )

[pinkteddy]

OK just putting forward options you might not have thought of. I do feel for you, we were trapped in our flat in the last housing slump in the early 90s so have looked into all these strategies/options myself. We are now in a lovely house so we got there eventually! Plus my sister in the managing agents game as I said. Something will turn up I'm sure, think postive