Posting here for traffic and because I am desperate for someone to talk me down off the ledge!
We own a flat in an expensive part of England. We paid £275k for it back in 2020, it came with a £1900 annual management fee. We thought ah, not so bad, it’s a city centre flat in a new development. In 4 years it’s gone up to £3600. The services received are crap. Over £50k for ‘gardeners’ who come once a year to mow the communal lawn. Cleaners who clock in on the sheet then leave 10 minutes later having done nothing. A scummy company basically, con artists and of course they’re totally unregulated.
We were unluckily caught up in the cladding scandal, and the whole saga of having this rectified took nearly 4 years in total. We moved out over 2 years ago and relocated for career changes, and have been living in a tiny 1 bedroom flat ever since. We couldn’t sell due to the lack of fire safety so have had to rent. We got the fire safety certificate and thought great, now we can sell our flat and move on with our lives! Now we can start trying for a baby (I’m 31, time isn’t on my side).
The flat has been on the market for 6 weeks and not a single viewing or enquiry. We’ve already priced it 25k below market value. Our agent believes it’s the high service charge putting people off.
After 2 years of hell waiting for the certificate and constant pushbacks by the housing developer for non existent reasons, we’ve today been told that our 2025 service charge will be between £7-9k PER FLAT to cover the cost of a new building safety report for all buildings over 18m high. There’s no guarantee this is a one off payment either. If people don’t want to buy with a £3600 service charge, they aren’t going to touch a flat with a £7-9k service charge.
I am absolutely devastated and have been crying since we found out. We thought this hell was over. Our lives have been stalled for over 2 years already. We can’t afford this charge. We are looking at a potential £700+ addition on top of our mortgage. We have tenants in at the moment but their rent only covers the mortgage and the service charge. We never have and never will make any profit off the flat, we rented it out of desperation and because we needed to relocate.
We are now looking at selling it at auction with a reserve price of £230k. We have an £80k deposit in this property and £180k left on the mortgage, so we would be selling at a major loss but at this point it seems the best option. We’ve even stooped to contacting those house buying companies.
I know it sounds dramatic but it genuinely feels like our life is over. We are just normal people with normal salaries. This will financially ruin us 😭