to think nobody will ever want to move to a new build in the future?

[AWholeNewName]

I'm moving from a newish build - it's a flat and we have been here six years. The maintenance has driven us out of the estate. We pay an extortionate fee for our flat block each month where there's only eight flats in it, a huge fee for the ground rent, another for the estate, a charge once a season and we just received a letter saying the cost will go up next year. When the estate was new the deal was that the builders would pay the maintenance for the first year and the contract said it would double every two. I now pay nearly the same as my mortgage in maintenance each month and have to pay council tax on top of that. I wouldn't mind if we had a well kept estate but it's rough to be honest and has hit the six year mark that it needs a new lick of paint. I'm so glad in moving, but I can't see who would ever choose to live in a flat in the future.

Aibu or will something have to give eventually with how things are going?

Yanbu
Yabu

It sounds like yours is particularly expensive.
It depends where you live and what kind of property.
Round here new builds are all houses, no flats, don't have maintenance contracts, ground rent and are freehold. North East though not London.

I love mine as it’s so well insulated and cosy after always living in cold period properties

I don't know how new builds are even selling. All the new build estates locally have estate charges. There is no cap on how much these can be Increased by year on year. Just seems too risky to me.

YANBU. Leasehold is a massive issue and more common with new builds. It's an absolute racket of a system that fleeces buyers.

Yanbu. I've only owned a flat once. There were 4 in the block, ground rent was £25 a year and there was no management co, we just sorted things ourselves.

I still sold after 3 years and moved to a freehold. It was just a matter of time.....

I’m shocked at how poorly the new estates are laid out. I grew up in a new estate in the 1970s and there were proper drives for cars and paths and green spaces. Now they are shoved together with nowhere for cars to park.
There’s one near me that literally looks like a car park as each house only has room for one tiny car on the drive so they’re all over the streets.

It has nothing to do with new build homes and everything to do with a terrible lease agreement which you seemingly happily signed up to. Maintenance doubling every 2 years is insane.

Flats in large blocks are always going to have a service charge. There’s no way around that.
Whether the lease is reasonable is another. However people shouldn’t buy a flat if they can’t afford it don’t want to pay the listed maintenance fee.

I clicked the wrong ‘being unreasonable’ as in your OP you have them the wrong way round!

I agree with you but to do with new build houses being badly built. Old houses are popular now because they have character and are well built. Normally have well proportioned rooms and decent size gardens. I wonder in 100 years who would want to live in our new builds. They’re badly built with tiny rooms and gardens, squished together in soulless estates without enough parking. Will be need to bulldoze them and start again?

"When the estate was new the deal was that the builders would pay the maintenance for the first year and the contract said it would double every two"

Why on earth did you agree to a crazy contract like that?!?!?! That's insane!!!

I have owned a newbuild flat in the past and would have run a mile if it had such a ridiculous clause. Mine was nothing like that. It had a sensible monthly maintenance charge (10 flats) and the projected maintenance with associated cost for the next 20 years was all planned out with a contingency fund for any unforeseen work that needed doing.

Have you sold this flat yet??? It wouldn't surprise me if the maintenance charge puts buyers off.

Sorry doubles every 2 years?! Have I misunderstood or have you signed the worst contract ever?!

That would mean after 20 years every £1 in year 1 would be over a grand!

I would never move into a new build or any of these estates that get thrown up by big house builders. Apart from being soulless and ugly I’ve never known them not be riddled with issues and then you have all these fees. And yet everywhere I look round here another “executive” estate is being thrown up so I guess people must be buying them but why is beyond me

I would never buy a new build.

There's a big development near us that was built about 5 years ago, never ending problems with the houses. A load of them are now up for sale and nobody is buying them. Hideous to look at too.

very rarely have flats on new build estates where I am….just houses and bungalows ( NW England) …..I don’t know a single person who lives in a flat

Fees?
Doubling !

Is that some type of leasehold thing that only affects England ?

New build flats are especially a nightmare. My father lives in a small development in a house but used to be in charge of the company which manages the freeholds and the insurance premiums on the 6 flats was shocking. Thousand of pounds per flat per year and premiums going up per year. He resigned from the position as he's nearly 80 but recently got dragged back into it as someone dissolved the company without transferring everything to a new company.

A quick mental sum suggests that if you pay £1,000 now for maintenance, in 20 years it will be £1,000,000 every year.
Bargain.

I think so @midgetastic Very few leasehold properties in Scotland, flats or otherwise, as I understand it.

We bought a new build semi-detached in 2004 ( In Scotland) and the only expense was/is for maintenance of the common ground in the Estate ( including a play park) for which we pay around £130 per annum per household

I have a beautifully constructed, freehold new build built by a local master builder. Not all new builds are created equally

I'm surprised you managed to sell it. Did it take long?

How much is the maintenance of toy don't mind me asking, OP.

I wouldn't usually but I am intrigued by the fact it's similar to a mortgage repayment.

That's ok I'm happy to share as have started the thread to discuss it, interesting that nobody else on here is in quite the same boat. Maintenance is 317 a month, then 80 for the estate itself, 25 for a gardener that comes monthly for the communal areas ( no parks etc but bits of grass and roundabouts nicely kept in suppose, lots of wedding as it has a cobbled vibe ), then we have all been stung in our block with what they described as essential maintenance and issued us all a 900 quid bill for painting the outside of the building and the balconys and garage doors etc - we had no option but but pay this as when we tried to pause it to have a meeting we all got stung further with letters saying late payment fee and they'd notify the mortgage lender etc if we didn't pay it. Basically in our contract it said we had to.

Also I had no real idea what I was signing up to when I moved in. I was very young with inheritance giving me a hefty deposit and a good salary in my job ( that I'm still in ). I sort of thought that it was the normal and my mortgage payments are low as a result. I have managed to sell the flat, fortunately and the woman who has bought it is downsizing from a house on another nearby estate so seemingly is okay with paying the fees. I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable but it seems SO much money for not a lot in return. I also have lived in fear of the maintenance company the entire time I've lived here. For e.g they didn't tell us about the estate payment in the management pack when we moved in by accident then a year into living there, merrily paying for the flat costs only I get a letter threatening legal action if I didn't pay up the backdated fee. I ended up paying it under duress which meant getting a loan and after complaining to them about how if I'd say, been abroad and missed the letter they'd have threatened me with a CCJ for a cost I never knew about. They didn't care when I was sobbing on the phone, just said basically there was an admin error but I still had to pay. Ultimately I did because I couldn't afford to fight it. I never want that again.

A few viewings! In fairness it's a gorgeous flat and estate but the cost seems like I'm paying for an image which the novelty has worn well off for because of the experiences I've had. I think also my situation had changed whilst I've lived here. For example I'm in a serious relationship now and spend a lot less on presenting myself in a certain way as I did when I was younger, grown up and seen through it a bit I think. I'm only moving into a tiny house but I can't wait to clean my own windows and not get a letter saying the cost of that service has gone up with inflation.

YANBU except that it is a new build leasehold problem rather than a new build problem in itself. Maintenance of new build estates and particularly apartment buildings has become a can't-lose racket for the companies who hold these contracts.

I know crazy isn't it! I knew a colleague in the block at the time and naively loved the lifestyle it gave and thought I'd have moved by then anyway. I knew really nothing about selling and buying back then, so much less naive now! I used to think if something looked stunning it would be snapped up and I was one of the snappers lol.

Very true actually, especially with people on this thread saying that this isn't the same experience across the board.