New build estate service charges

[helpmefindahouse]

Does anyone here live on a new build estate and have to pay a service/maintenance charge for things like grass cutting etc? Found a new build we love, but a bit nervous about the fees increasing a lot over the years. Any experiences?

I nearly bought a new build and some limited experience of this, but I did enquire this myself when going through the process.

It's common now, even if the property is freehold. It's usually because roads are unadopted, but includes things like grass cutting as well. The new build I was interested in had a little playground park that was part of the estate.

In regard to charges going up, obviously it's entirely possible. My advice would be to research the developer. The developer I was interested in was Taylor Lindsey and their service charge was £50 every 6 months. It hadn't gone up on their previous developments over the last 10 years. They are a local developer though and not one of the nationwide ones.

In the end, we ended up purchasing a Victorian property. Bigger garden 🙃

I bought in 2016 the estate was built in grounds laid out by capability brown so there are open spaces with that led trees and there is a requirement to maintain certain native species.
The gardeners come every week mow lawns, remove dead leaves and generally tidy. We have a sink fund toward tree surgery and tree replacement.
Each property owns a £1 share in the ownership of the grounds and we pay £300 per year (£25 monthly) towards the up keep. The grounds are beautiful a make living here a pleasure.
Management is done by a committee of property owners.

Ours is £160 PA although this only applies when the developer completes and leaves (currently they do everything and there is no fee).

Ours is £50 pa and includes management of planted areas (very little grass), provision of salt/grit for winter, some lighting, signage etc.

Mine has been around 250 pa for the 4 years I’ve lived here

I pay about £12 per month. They cut grass and trim hedges and deal with upkeep of the playparks. If larger maintenance items need doing then we pay a proposed towards that e.g. major tree cutting was done here last year as it hadn't been done for about 10 years and some trees were encroaching on people's properties

Yep we do - and I wouldn't buy a house again with one. They can basically charge what they want and you don't have a say in it. Ours was supposed to be £80 a year - it's working out around £80 per 6 months and sometimes a LOT more , for example when play equipment/gates needed replacing due to vandalism and you don't have a leg to stand on challenging it because all you are told is you agreed to it when you bought the house.

Honestly I would walk away from a property like this. We bought one on a new build estate 10 years ago and we were charged £250 per year for barely anything, the estate was always a mess and we hardly saw any management employees on sight. We have moved now but heard around the 10 year mark the fee went up to £325 pa. There were 400 homes on the site and the administration fees were 80% of the total expenditure each year. The actually invoices for the work involves were a tiny portion.

We pay a small amount of year for general maintenance. One neighbour badgers them and makes sure we're getting out money's worth. Neighbours area is not in good nick. Presumably because no one badgers the company. We're happy about our situation despite initially being concerned when going through the process of buying.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Obviously it's not ideal, just trying to work out it it's worth it when the house has so many other positives

Ours has stayed about the same for seven years.

I wouldn’t buy one on principle. These areas should be adopted by the council when they’re finished and at that point you’re essentially going to be paying maintenance twice.

I’ve heard some horror stories of spiralling fees and of management companies essentially dialling down the maintenance once all the houses are sold.

@GoldenApple

I nearly bought a new build and some limited experience of this, but I did enquire this myself when going through the process.

It's common now, even if the property is freehold. It's usually because roads are unadopted, but includes things like grass cutting as well. The new build I was interested in had a little playground park that was part of the estate.

In regard to charges going up, obviously it's entirely possible. My advice would be to research the developer. The developer I was interested in was Taylor Lindsey and their service charge was £50 every 6 months. It hadn't gone up on their previous developments over the last 10 years. They are a local developer though and not one of the nationwide ones.

In the end, we ended up purchasing a Victorian property. Bigger garden 🙃

Having bought two Taylor Lindsey homes (on different developments) the fees are very reasonable compared to others.

That's what I found too when comparing to other developers. I struggled to find anything negative about them really.

Mine is an apartment so it's for buildings insurance too and cleaning of the inner hallway (once a week)
I pay £150pm (which is ridiculous)

We pulled out of new build with these fleecehold charges. They are often not capped, so if a road collapses you'd all be liable to pay for it.

I work for a management company myself and whilst we are fair and transparent and we try to get the best value for money for our tenants, not every management company works like that and I would not trust that they wouldn't overcharge in years to come.

Oh, Google "fleecehold charges" for some horror stories.

@JaniceBattersby

I wouldn’t buy one on principle. These areas should be adopted by the council when they’re finished and at that point you’re essentially going to be paying maintenance twice.

I’ve heard some horror stories of spiralling fees and of management companies essentially dialling down the maintenance once all the houses are sold.

Same.

Heard too many outright lies from the big companies over the years.

Many years ago I lived in an apartment with what seemed like reasonable service charges. When the development finished and control was handed over to the management company (owned by all the leaseholders) it became obvious that the charges had been set way, way below the cost of actually providing all the services. We had to sell the company apartment and fire the caretaker who lived there, double the annual charges, and still cut back on a number of things like window cleaning.

We then ended up in the situation where two owners in particular got voted on to the Board because of their 'expertise' - they ran their own property management company - and gradually we found that all the services were being outsourced to this company without proper tendering or any kind of VFM exercise. It's not a situation I would ever want to find myself in again, but I was only 19 when I moved there and nearly 30 years later feel that I'd be better equipped to make a fuss.

If the charges are sensible for what you're getting (as leaseholders you should be entitled to see invoices etc) and the management company is run properly and transparently then the set-up seems fair. But red flags are any owners wanting to get involved because they think they can make money, and a high proportion of absentee leaseholders who aren't willing or able to hold the management company to account.

Also worth pointing out that ground rent is a totally different matter, and charges for that can grow quite dramatically in a short space of time without anything in return.

We bought this house 9 years ago, and the maintenance of the communal areas was £20pm. A few years ago it jumped up to £29pm. I think a 50% increase over night is shocking, however, it's still quite affordable so it's not a huge problem. For this fee the village green is mowed, all front gardens are mowed, the bushes are trimmed, paving or trees are replaced when needed, and the internal areas in apartment blocks are maintained. Also street lighting is serviced.

Ours is around £200 a year and hasn’t massively changed. They do the grass and the park and the nature area. They do a good job but I think they’re getting a hell of a lot of money out of us for the amount of money they charge.

Not convinced my post made sense! They’re getting a hell of a lot of money out of us for the amount of work they do is what it should say!

We do. It's gone from £100 to £140 over 4 years, so a slight increase but not huge. And to be fair, they are here all the time, even over winter and do a good job so I don't begrudge paying it.

Ours hasn't gone up at all. Tbh I don't begrudge paying it as they are way more assiduous than the council at doing maintenance and cutting grass and also gritting/clearing snow.