Shared ownership and staircasing

[candlefloozy]

Purchased a shared ownership property two years ago. They've sent a letter today saying if we want to staircase they will pay for the valuation and legal fees - great. I've emailed to get the ball rolling. When we was buying the house we were told we could buy 100%. So the email I've received said that we can do this but we would need to pay our service charge. So does this mean that even if we own 100% of the house that we'd still need to pay the service charge?? Seems silly to me. Anyone been in the same situation? Or have I just misunderstood the email. Also, they will probably explain this to me on Monday but as it's Friday afternoon I was just wondering.

For my shared ownership home I will still have to pay the servicing charge even if I own the whole house. For me, it’s to pay for the upkeep of shared areas such as communal parking.

Valuation and legal fees are looking to be about £1,500-£2,000 - so I’d be very happy with that offer!

Yes service charge is completely separate!

I'm really happy about no legal fees. That's why I'm so keen to take them up on their offer. What I don't understand is the service charge. I've just checked my letter and it's for a warden - who I haven't seen for months and months! He just walks around the whole estate and some properties have been bought. Then buildings insurance and then an admin fee for shared ownership. There is nothing communal about us. So I'm not sure why we'd have to keep paying for all of those three things. We'd obviously change our insurance to include buildings once we'd purchased 100% too

Are there common green areas on your estate? Playground? Have roads etc through the estate been adopted by the council?
Look up "fleecehold" (freehold that isn't actually free from "hold".

Is your property leasehold or freehold?

If your road is unadopted, you’ll have to contribute towards its upkeep. All of this should’ve been made clear when you initially purchased the property.

@Wishiknewthen thank you
@OrcharD14 I just can't remember now. I'll have to get the paper work out and check but we don't have any roads like that. Or any local communal areas

"if we want to staircase": please can you explain as I haven't heard that expression before.

Is it freehold or leasehold? If it’s leasehold - usual in flats but also quite common in new build houses - you will have to pay service charges. Buildings insurance is the responsibility of the freeholder for a flat, so again it depends whether you are leaseholders or freeholders.

Just out of interest (I have S.O) are you thinking of increasing the monthly mortgage payments (so seeing a financial advisor & adding to the mortgage) or are you thinking of a lump sum?

I was thinking of just overpaying my mortgage through the bank.

@Wauden so we've currently purchased 50% of the property. We can then buy more of the property by staircasing. So we can buy another 5% of the property up to the remaining 50%

@MarkRonsonsMother just adding it to the mortgage. So we currently pay for 50% but hoping to add maybe as little as 10% it all depends on the difference between us paying it as part of the mortgage or the difference in how much it would be for rent.

Is your mortgage due for renewal?

@MarkRonsonsMother yeah we can start looking from next month. So thought I'd take them up on their free valuation and go from there.

Candlefloozy I didn’t realize that my street, on a newly built development, was unadopted until I called the council about the street lighting not being turned on & they told me to contact the managing agent. I also learnt that the owners are responsible for road sweeping & resurfacing. We already had yellow lines but had to organise our own enforcement, which we had to do, as our road was full of commuters’ vehicles on weekdays since surrounding roads are residents only.

Thats good, that the renewal is due.

I use an Independent Mortgage Advisor. He initially charged me £200 when I bought, & he finds me a good deal every 2 years free of charge (to me)

He obviously gets a cut from the bank. We are quite limited as to who will lend to S.O, but Im with a high street B.S.

I am considering buying more. I did't realise I would still have to pay a service charge.

We are still waiting for the street lights to be switched on after 4 YEARS! I have rung every person that is involved over 40 times.

Still no answers.

@OrcharD14 blimey! That's crazy. No one wants responsibility anymore do they?! I'm in a very old house on an old road.

@MarkRonsonsMother that's not good at all.
No not many banks offer it. We had a problem finding somewhere when we first bought the property. I was hoping to purchase the full100% so it was done and and dusted to be honest. So hoping that would mean we can go to anyone for the new mortgage. But it does all depend on the valuation for us. We didn't have a mortgage advisor before so thinking about getting one this time.

Ask for recommendations for an advisor.

I recommended mine to a friend and got a £50 M&S voucher.

I think they look at about 200+ lenders.

Candlefloozy The annoying thing is that we pay for all of these services, which the council doesn’t provide, via a management fee, but still have to pay full council tax. Along with several neighbours, we challenged this, to no avail!

@MarkRonsonsMother that's brilliant! I'll defo do that!!

@OrcharD14 this is the thing. I've just asked a neighbour if they pay for the warden. They said not that they know of. Assumed it came out of the council tax bill!
It's the admin fee from shared ownership which has got me because surely we wouldn't be shared ownership anymore so why would we have pay them an admin fee? This has raised lots of questions that I need to ask come Monday.

Candlefloozy, please let me know the outcome. Maybe the admin. fee is the management fee, which you’ll still pay, even if you own the property outright?

@OrcharD14 will do. Hoping to find out more about all these charges today. Then it's just valuation etc

Candlefloozy, thanks so much.

@OrcharD14 the team got back in touch with me but they didn't answer my question about the money we'd still be paying even though we owned 100%. They have emailed to say that they've informed the estate agents who are coming to value soon. Once that's sorted I'll re ask the questions and let you know. Estate agent isn't coming for another couple of weeks though.