service charge on a freehold property

[tippyteapot]

Weve seen a lovely townhouse in a town centre location. Its freehold and comes with allocated parking space in a secure walled carpark with electric gates. On right move it states the service (maintenence charge to upkeep this carpark/ gate) is currently£220 a year. Ive been reading this is common on new developments anyway and I can see that its fair all home owners on this development (its a line of new houses ) that we pay for its up keep. Its just this is the first time Ive come across this as the house we live in is a run of the mill semi on a normal road...no charges (1980s housing estate).
So is this common? Does anyone else have similar? I`m just nervous! (its the house of our dreams though...., perfect location and everything!).

Pretty common over the last 10 years. We are the same, fh with a small maintenance charge for the road and car park, and a garden.

dh isn`t phased by this . where we are now we share a driveway to our garages with 3 other neighbours. it really needs repaving/ gravelling! But as he said because of the fact none of us have a service charge , hence nothing will be done because not all of us owners are willing to pay for the work!

soooo I can see why a service charge is there for the town house secure parking. makes sure we ALL on the development "chip in"? Jobs get done on the nice carpark without bickering!

Saves the hassle of a large maintenance bill of the roads or gates need repair

More of an insurance policy

I’d steer clear. We reserved a new build house which was freehold and had the service charge. Went through solictors etc to be told it can change to whatever the management company wish to charge. Google the horror stories, people are paying up to £1000 a year for this rubbish! My father used to live in a freehold new build and the whole estate refused to pay the service charge as the grass wasn’t cut, lamps weren’t changed in the street lights etc. You’ll find on companies house, most of the directors of the management companies are actually directors of the building firms who built the houses so you’ve basically bought a house from a developer and are continuing to fund their pockets

It's be ok as long as the service charge doesn't have a built-in increase. £220 a year sounds reasonable, but is is going to double in ten years, like some ground rents do?

I`ll do that. I want to know the good and bad ......in theory I understand the charge and the whole reasoning. BUT I need to be wary it seems.

These are known in law as estate rentcharges. The problem with them is that, unlike with leasehold service charges, there’s no requirement for the charge to be reasonable and the first tier tribunal has no jurisdiction to deal with them. So the developer could put the charge up and there wouldn’t be much you could do.

I wouldn't as a couple of PP's have said, these companies can increase the charges if they want to. If possible best to avoid anything whereby you're committed to ties of some sort.

As you are buying somewhere with gates and secure parking there will always be charges like this. If you dont want to pay buy a normal house with normal parking and access.

mmmm reading lots on internet about this. For new builds on nice pretty developments this seems common now. I understand for this property its for maintenence/ upkeep of the electric gate / carpark.....fair enough. Makes me nervous though. I`m trying to find anyone who pays a charge similar circumstances and is happy with the arrangement!

I have lived in two freehold places with shared areas one a car park and one a drive. In neither case was there a service charge or management agreement. It meant the car park was not kept up and became a dumping ground. In the current place with the shared drive there is one very lovely neighbour who organises the up keep and everyone else pays him whatever he says. I dread him moving.

It is worth it for a well run communal area.

If you really like it it is worth finding out how the common space is owned. Sometimes, there is a management company that owns the land, but you have a share in it per house but developer's agent runs the company as director. If you do, then it is usually possible to pull together with neighbours and sack the agent as a director and then run things yourselves it's just that lots of people put up with it and don't bother and don't know how to. Your solicitor could be asked to give advice on how to do it. If the company owns the land/space and you have no interest in it and no means of getting them out I'd be more wary.

good points all round. Our private driveway for our 4 houses is owned by all of us there, it goes to the garages. As Goodcat says , because theres no commitment/ maintenence charge whatever, NOTHING is done on it. So the gravel driveway now really needs totally ground levelling and new gravel on. We would happily pay our share, but I cant see our neighbours landlord doing that ..... And so it stays the same state...... We weed it and fill in dips as they appear in the gravel over time. Because others dont. Id assume if this was a shiny new housing estate/ development, wed have a charge maybe to keep it "nice" over time. It would be a part of the deal like new ones have so it doesnt fall into disrepair? a lot to consider.