Pressure from house sellers

OP, are you buying in SW London by any chance?

Another one on a small estate with these charges and no issues here.
It’s becoming increasingly common as councils refuse to take on additional costs of shared areas when developers build an estate.

Ours is 60 properties. About 50 freehold houses and 10 leasehold flats. The estate is lovely with landscaping and a path by a river. We pay around £300 a year. Meetings are quarterly and open to all. Attended by several residents. Accounts are transparent. Has been working well for 22 years since the estate was built.
New residents get a visit to be told about the agreed paint colours. No satellite dishes. Apart from that they are no bother and everything looks good.
I wouldn’t let it put me off the right house.

If you're not desperate, OP, then just go at your own pace. Dont be held to ransom or bullied by the EA or Sellers.

Like you say, doing your due diligence is key. Especially with their attitude and apparent incompetence. And, if you call their bluff and they do pull out then you can still re offer (with a lower amount if you wanted) in spring.

But I have a feeling they are bluffing and wouldnt collapse it

OP, Something else occurred to me. I suggest you have conversations with the agent on email. I am garrulous - you might have noticed this - and tend to chat on the phone. I have been lied to SO many times by agents over the years, both when buying and selling, and I would have got closer to the truth on issues if they had had to put statements in writing.

Good point. Like I’ve said previously I would never buy anywhere with that kind of set up again, the agro, the stress, the not knowing what the next bill is going to be etc etc. all for maintenance I didn’t really benefit from.

But on the other hand with only 10 houses it could be alright.

You are right though they need to get the full details before even deciding if their offer still stands and after that they can start searches and surveys etc.

There should absolutely be more regulation over these companies and one of the things should be about these packs being free and provided in a timely manner.

The trouble is, you only need to buy on an estate where there are issues to regret buying! The good examples make little difference to you then. I think that’s why the OP needs to review the pack in full. I wouldn’t necessarily pull out purely based on the fact it is managed - but it’s material in deciding whether to move forward or not

Well that shows that it can work really well then!

It may be a handful of terrible companies around the UK that have given this set up a really bad name for itself then. It’s a shame for those estates that have it working really well and haven’t had issues. Perhaps the terrible experiences like I have had are not the norm and we are scaring the OP unnecessarily.

Interestingly we are an estate of around 165 units (flats, detached, semi) and a mix of owner occupier, shared ownership, private rent. The shared ownership properties are managed internally by the registered provider but there are still external works covered by the management charge. We have green space, roads, parking, TPO trees, etc within the boundary so it’s a complicated set up. I don’t know why it works so well, but it does. I appreciate it isn’t for a lot of people though. Properties here do take longer to see than others but it doesn’t seem to put many people off. But then we are in a popular Sussex town with good schools etc so perhaps that helps the market

This sounds a lot better than my previous situation. There were 47 houses/flats in total that shared the cost. I think the fact that there were so many and a mix of leasehold and freehold with the same management company maintaining the apartment buildings and the common ground, made the process more complicated and annoying for the freeholders. If there are a few freehold properties and they can self manage rather than use a useless company, this is a little easier.

However my experIence was so bad that I just wouldn’t go there again. I totally blame the company involved though and not the actual set up itself!

Charges on freehold estates are not looked on favourably by people though and do have bad press, and people like myself and others on this thread are put off by it so it may make the property hard to sell on later.

If you don't like that it's apparently not freehold I would just withdraw. Don't be pushed into something you may regret.

As for the estate agent being rude to you, OP, on the phone, well…. words fail me.

When people are under pressure or in a hurry they make mistakes or miss things.

House purchase at this point in the economic cycle is something to be taken very calmly and seriously.

Please please don’t fall for inappropriate behaviour verging on bullying.

I second this. I know people have nightmares but our set up works very sensibly and it’s very reasonable and means the estate is very well kept and a lovely place to live. The biggest contention here is also how to manage some of the scrubby areas (meant to be left for biodiversity but others want to turf 🙄)

so definitely worth taking time to review the pack as it might be absolutely fine

A) the seller / sellers agent should have given you the info on added costs up front. They’re legally required to give you “material information” to allow you to make an informed about your offer upfront. So this is on them.

b) Management companies are notoriously slow at providing these packs. It’s not your fault - the seller would find themselves in this postition with any buyer.

dont let them push you into a decision before you w reviewed and asked questions.

Please do! You said yourself you wouldn’t have submitted as high an offer if you had known. At the very least I would reduce it by the present value of the annual payment for eg ten years. Take account of each payment potentially increasing.

By the way, if you proceed and your survey comes back with issues (windows need to be painted, evidence of a leak in the shower etc, regrouting needed) the normal thing would be to ask the surveyor to estimate how much these things would add up to and reduce your offer by that amount.

Keep asking yourself why they didn’t mention the annual fee situation at the outset.

My parents live on a nice 1980s estate built on the grounds of an old country house, which was also converted into flats. The management company was mismanaged because it’s run by retired neighbours who have no idea what they are doing, they exposed themselves to legal liability by acting illegally in a maintenance matter, lost a case and went bankrupt. All 50+ properties on the estate are unsellable for the forseeable. I would tread carefully in your position.

Well, then they shouldn’t have taken two months to get you the pack, should they?

Just say no. What are they going to do? Re-list and expect to complete with a new buyer in less than a month? Not a chance.

Conveyancing will take what it takes. They need to re-negotiate with the developer. Usually it takes a 10% holding deposit, so they need to free up some funds until exchange. It’s nothing to do with you.

That said, if they are moving into a house that isn’t ready yet, the question I’d be asking is where are they moving out to when you complete and it’s not ready.

Our sellers rushed us along to exchange (which worked for us because we were applying for school places), but then we had a 3 month wait to complete. Their house STILL wasn’t ready, so they had to move into their second home (as you do 🙄). It’s lucky for us that they had a second home because they ended up not being able to complete on their new house for another 18 months!

This whole arrangement sounds complicated as hell though and that alone would make me inclined to walk away.

We live on a road with this exact situation. It's worked well for decades and our estate fees are low and it's run by the residents for the benefit of the residents. We uphold the few covenants that we have on the estate. Sure there's a couple of more annoying interfering types and we can never agree on some bits and bobs (gardening pf common parts seems to be a particular bone of contention) but it by and large works very well.
So don't worry too much until youve reviewed the pack and see what it says. It may be fine and you don't need to worry. In our case the estate is kept clean and no one can put in ugly extensions or paint their front door bright pink so the estate looks smart and uniform.
Of curse it may not be like that but YANBU to review the pack first and see what you think. And you are v sensible to not spend further money until you are happy

ETA: our houses are entirely freehold BTW. The only thing that is communal is the common parts ie the road to and around the houses. The freehold of the house have some restricted covenants which are enforced by the residents association (around appearance of properties and some other bits). We chose not to outsource to a separate management company but run it ourselves as its cheaper

I would run a mile from a property like this. It is NOT freehold if there is a management company involved. OP hasn’t really explained clearly, but presumably this is a modern development where the houses are ‘freehold’ but there is a maintenance charge for communal gardens/parking etc. It will be a nightmare. You have no control over the maintenance charge increases or what repairs you will find yourself liable for, and inevitably there will be conflict.

I once owned a tiny freehold house but it was attached on one side to a bigger building divided into 4 flats. We shared the small car park in front of the properties. Whilst my house was freehold, my parking space was leasehold and I had to pay a maintenance fee. The management company were absolute cowboys, hiking the fee every year and also demanding I pay 1/5 of imaginary repairs, etc. It was an absolute ball ache.

I am planning to sell my current flat in a small block after 10 years of this sort of communal crap - endless negotiations/disagreements with others in the block about maintenance, etc, and constant annoyance and ineptitude from the management company, annual increases in the maintenance fee, etc. I will be buying a freehold house which will be entirely freehold, so I am not beholden to anyone else.

The arrangement the OP is talking about is a recipe for years of problems ahead. Don’t do it.

If the vendors were part of the management company it would have been in their interest to make sure the details were readily available. The time lag is on them. A developer probably just wants completion as early as possible to aid cash flow and targets. A month from now is probably not realistic, if you have not yet instructed the searches and survey.

You need to pull out. Find freehold. You’ll be saddled with fees forever. Trust your gut

@Roadtrippingroundgreece guess why these people are moving….

you’re the one with the power here! THEY will lose their onward purchase… but they CAN pressure the developers to move completion date. They’re being pushed around, so are pushing you around and probably deliberately trying to conceal the management company

this has bad news written all over it.

walk.

I would absolutely not buy a property with a management fee. It could well go up exponentially, especially as venture capitalists are now in the game of buying them so I’ve read somewhere. It will be a real issue for you should you want to sell. Think very carefully OP it was omitted for a very good reason.

This happened to me with a property I was trying to buy earlier this year. I thought it was freehold, but there were management charges for things like the maintenance of the green spaces and lighting between the houses. It took so long to get the management company to send me the information on current and potential future charges (despite chasing them over and over) that our mortgage offer expired, and we ended up deciding to pull out and now are buying a straight freehold with no extra charges. We are buying a forever home and lost all confidence in having to deal with a terrible company that couldn’t even give us information within months of chasing!

You say this would have affected your offer.

Therefore your offer needs to change!

Do not let them away with this - it is not a bargain and someone has lied to you already.