Thinking of buying flat - communal area is not good

[Fmlgirl]

Hey all,

I was wondering if someone could give me some advice.

I'm thinking of putting in an offer on a flat which has been done up nicely to a high standard. Also the location is good and the flat is really lovely.

However the communal area (stairway) is in a horrible state (carpet, wall needs painting, smelled of smoke) plus one letter box for all residents.

They flat is a leasehold and they charge a management fee of 1200 for buildings insurance and maintenance (doesn't look like any is being done).

I'm conflicted as to do what do so. I would love the flat but that putting me right off. I was planning to go in with a lower offer because of this.

Thanks a lot for your advice!

Jenny

I personally think this is quite a common issue. I have a friend who is always telling me £120 a month is good value because she doesn't pay buildings insurance, but her corridor is dingy and grim and I only pay £120 a year for house insurance combined. Does it have to be a flat?

Hey PNGirl,

I'd much rather live in a house but the ones we saw were in somewhat grim areas of London. Our budget would go up much higher than this flat we are interested in but the monthly repayments are so low that we just want to treat this as a starter home.

Thanks!

I would be very wary of a flat where you dont own a share of the freehold

Has there been much other interest in the flat? I would be wary of resale value as you may struggle.

I have lived in a few leasehold flats. The best have two very important features, firstly the flat owners own the freehold - so that the people who live there get to decide on how much money to spend on what - and secondly there is a sinking fund so that every year the owners of the flats put some money aside to save up for redecorating communal areas, replacing carpets, a new roof etc.

I'm afraid I'd say to keep looking. The communal areas will only get worse if they don't have any attention paid to them and obviously no one cares enough to create a fuss about it. It might be that the others in the building are owned by landlords, in which case no one else who pays the management fees has eyes on the place very often. In time, when you want to sell the place, you will find it difficult to sell for this reason because no one wants to be confronted by a miserable area like that as they come home. You'd have to get it for a really bargain price to even consider it.

Hi Jenny,
Whereabouts are you looking?
Do you have transport?
My partner and I had the same discussion and we found if we looked just a little bit further out we could get more bang for our buck. Eg: we got 4 bedroom/2 bathroom/garage/garden for the price of a 1 bed flat where we were originally looking.
We only moved our search 8 miles out.

Good luck
Cian