perfect house but shared drive and maintenance fee

[Evecob]

After months of looking, we found a house that would work really well for us (family of 4) in October, we are due to exchange contracts in January.

It's got 4 good size double bedrooms all over 10ft by 10ft, one room would be the office/gaming room. Its got a layout we could work with downstairs, a conservatory off the livingroom for our toddler and baby to use as a playroom/store their toys, a utility room, a kitchen breakfast room and a separate dining(we could knock through to make kitchen diner). A south west facing garden and a single garage with space for 2 cars beside the house. The house itself we love. The front is pretty private with a lovely green ending in raised trees.

However I am now having a few concerns after finally being told the charge for the upkeep of the area by the vendors. When we made the offer we knew the house would have a maintenance fee for the upkeep (its a newish build built in 2014, the house we currently live in also has one) but it is £150 more than ours (almost 300 for the year) and they have complained about the management company, told us how useless they are at keeping the area maintained. When we viewed the house, it looked great to us, there's a lovely green right out the front of our house.

We also have a shared drive, with one other house on the end who would need to drive past us, and one other house at the entrance to the drive. We have our own 2 spaces in front of our garage for both of our cars with no issue and there is a car park close to the shared driveway where cars on the new build estate can park, every time we have gone we have got a spot, so guests could park there.

Would the maintenance company fee and shared driveway put you off from buying this house?

@Evecob can't really get away from dykes in the Fens

Definitely get your solicitor onto the management fee issue OP. It would worry me that the company refused to discuss it with you.

In my (limited!) experience, residents should get a breakdown each year if what the fee covers. Can you ask your EA for the sellers past copies? Then you could see the sort of increase they have had and also exactly what is covered. Also you'll be able to see how much is added to a fund for future and how much the management company takes as it's fee.

Sounds like you haven't got a great solicitor, if you haven't been able to get holds of them for a week (which might just mean they're very busy). But that means the onus is on you to really push for the issue to be completely transparent and not let your solicitor brush you off with "oh it's normal for these sorts of properties". It is, bit that doesn't mean you have to be ok with it. Sometimes things can be changed, sometimes it means walking away.

Good luck OP.

If there is a management company you need to check what else they charge for aside from the monthly/annual fees. We have one and, like many others who have bought here, did not know until it was too late that the company also charge for things like:

• remortgaging paperwork (and they are so slow to provide it that is has caused some residents real problems)
• house selling paperwork (and have been so slow to produce it for some people that it has caused their sales to fall through)
• planning permission
• making any changes to the outside of the property (including painting your front door a colour that is not white - they have now been overruled on this as so many have done it and refused to pay)
• changing name details on your payment account - when I got married they wanted a ridiculous amount to change my name, and more proof of name change than even the passport office required

They do maintain the area well but underneath the surface they are pretty awful and the residents can't wait to get rid of them. It's worth doing some digging before you commit.