anyone thinking of buying a Mccarthey stone retirement flat DONT

[Isseywith3witchycats]

3 years ago my MIL died and to date trying to sell her flat in Braintree has been an absolute nightmare, 1st buyer found a cheaper one, second buyer pulled out on exchange day current buyer has been waiting for paperwork to come from them which has taken forever just about to go to exchanging paperwork and they have now said prospective buyer can not buy it as she is 58 years old this flat was bought 15 years ago for £147000 and even at £105000 which was what we accepted still cannot seem to sell it, thing is in the complex its in its one of the best ones large due to being on a corner and ground floor so direct access to the gardens and have had a brand new boiler put in and over the three years it has cost service charges so god knows what we are going to do when whats left of the estate money has gone 7 heirs so each heir wont get a massive amount of money

abandon hope all ye who set foot in one😱

I do see the social benefits of these but I really think it should be rent only with long term secured leases, so the residents have security, but I assume this wouldn’t be as profitable. I do think the employees of these companies probably do want to do their best for residents but let’s not pretend the companies that build these are doing it for anything other than to get as much profit as possible.

let’s not pretend the companies that build these are doing it for anything other than to get as much profit as possible
true, unless they are subjected to gvt regulation the companies will carry on merrily rinsing the vulnerable elderly for every penny they can get....it's as easy as taking candy from a baby for them

Where there's a multitude of heirs and an executor to deal with the estate before they can inherit, that's one kind of nightmare.

But when there's a sole heir, who will inherit the property itself and become liable for the costs until it's sold, I can see people dying.

Imagine losing your home because you can't afford your mortgage and living expenses and the running costs if the flat, so you eventually go bankrupt. But you can't get any assistance because you own property (which you can't live in).

Imagine living hand to mouth and inheriting these extra charges, going into debt instantly, ending up with bailiffs chasing you and a CCJ, even if you manage to sell it before bankruptcy your normal everyday life is still impacted going forward. Assuming the stress didn't drive you to suicide/addiction/illness.

Imagine means tested benefits being your sole income and losing your entire income overnight. How do you pay rent? Feed yourself? Not just for a few months but for years until the flat is sold. Will people end up on the street?

If people leave them to charity to avoid inconveniencing loved ones, imagine the impact on the charity. Do you really want eg Samaritans or Childline answering less phone calls from distressed desperate people because £10k a year of funds is going to the management company of the flat you left them? What about all the charities that would go bust due to these "kind" bequests? Do people realise how much social care is farmed out to charities and not provided by the state? Children's charities, mental health, domestic violence, homelessness, poverty, disability, terminal illness and elderly people's charities etc. Do people want others to go without help because charities have closed or have less funds?

These flats are a frigging disaster for everyone other than the person who lives in them. Or perhaps the well off who can afford the costs until it's sold, recouping their losses at that point. It's going to end up impacting society as a whole.

a friend of mine relative did this at a similar age and within eighteen months had a stroke and needed to move into a care home. So they were up for two sets of fees.

What happens in the cases where the resident can't pay the care home fees and the flat's charges? Usually the residence would be sold to fund care in the first instance but what happens with these unsellable flats? Is the resident denied a place in a care home because they don't qualify for state funding as they own property? Or are they left in hospital unable to be discharged because there's nowhere to discharge them to? Is social services wasting manpower dealing with the selling of these complex properties (where there's no family of the resident to do it)? Spending more time than would be necessary on the sale of an ordinary property. Maybe even the people who live in these flats aren't safe from the problems around selling them.

These flats are a frigging disaster for everyone other than the person who lives in them
we should warn people, organise protests outside them, set up a help group for those with elderly relative installed in the MCS traps?

Sounds quite shocking!
If the flat owner dies, is the liability going forward not just appertaining to the dead person's assets and once that's all gone, the flat would just be repossessed?

Talks about "in perpetuity" Wow..a curse indeed. You'd have to really hate someone to bequeath them a retirement flat in your will!!
www.ft.com/content/362495a8-7041-11e6-9ac1-1055824ca907

@20questions Repossession is for mortgages. Essentially a mortgage is a loan secured against the house/flat. So if you don't pay up, the mortgage company repossesses the property. These retirement flats are being bought outright, no mortgage involved. So nobody to repossess.

If someone runs up debts the company they owe can take out a charge against the property, essentially securing the debt against the property. The company can eventually force sale of the property to get what they're owed. But these flats are already for sale...

I see the retirement flat schemes as a sort of crime against society. Useful in the short term for the person living there but that's it. I think the government should put a stop to them.

As a previous poster mentioned, a rental scheme would be better to avoid the problem of what to do with the flat after death or when needing to go into care. What happens when the resident's money pot from selling their home runs out though? Eg £200k pot for £15k per year in rent and service charges isn't going to last long. If someone started renting one of these at 60yrs old their pot could run out before they die.

I doubt housing benefit would cover it, so if their income from a pension wasn't enough to cover it and their living expenses, then what? They're homeless? They can't move into social housing because there isn't enough to go round. They can't rent a flat privately because they've got a poor credit history from defaulting on their retirement flat's rent or because they just can't afford it/there's none available.

People won't go for it if they think they're in danger of having to rent privately in future never mind potentially being homeless. You don't sell a house you've worked all your life to pay the mortgage for, only to put yourself into that position. So people would stay put where they are and then end up needing (non- existent) social care.

Retirement flats shunt the need for elderly social care, outside of care homes, into whatever social needs are created from the poor souls inheriting these flats. It's a band-aid on a broken limb. I can't see the government fixing it. They're all about the band-aids and not so much about the long term picture.

I'm the poster up thread whose Mum rents one.
She pays £750 a month. Tbh her pension more than covers it. She is at a stage now where she doesn't have a lot of other outgoings. Council tax and the heating is 2 night storage heaters. She has several hundred thousand in fixed bonds which also offset the cost of the rent (especially now interest rates are going up). So she has some fairly accessible funds should we need to pay for care home etc. However, tbh there are many people in the flats who manage well enough, and probably longer with carers coming in. Mum has had a better social life in the last year than any point since she retired. She has friends and they all look out for each other.

You'd have to really hate someone to bequeath them a retirement flat in your will
maybe one could bequeath it to the owner of the retirement complex?
(having first stripped it bare of anything that could be sold for a profit...and then some)

@FirstnameSuesecondnamePerb I can only imagine that your mum lives I a relatively cheap area. I've looked up a retirement place here and including the service charge it's £1100. And it doesn't have the same kind of facilities that a McCarthy and Stone does. I imagine those would be more. House prices near me are only slightly more than average, btw.

Good grief. £1100 is cheap. Look at these M&S ones. A few at around £1200 but most are £1500 to a mind blowing £2900.

www.mccarthyandstone.co.uk/retirement-properties-to-rent/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ppc_google&utm_content=retirement_rental_&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4OybBhCzARIsAIcfn9lyp17eH4W3a2_0J9QJ-vEpf29pH7bCLChv2_ALHy0dldWX7_mSJqUaAi-wEALw_wcB

The ones advertised for rent by McCarthy and Stone will be newbuild and command a big premium. Older properties will be cheaper than that.

@saraclara not especially, South East, south coast. She rents through an agency Girlings. I reckon thr block was built in the 1980s/poss early 90s. But it's beautifully kept.

My parents have just moved to a new-build M&S flat in Kent. It's 4 years old and very high quality construction and fittings. Service charges are £235 pcm for which they get the house manager 5 days a week, 24 hour call system, gardener, window cleaning, maintenance and cleaning the building inside and out, water, insurance, etc, etc. They do vary hugely, but not everywhere are very high charges.

Their flat was on the market for 3 years (had only been lived in for one year before the owner died). Pandemic obviously didn't help sales, but we're perfectly aware of the difficulty of selling in a market which is only for people aged 60plus with no need of a mortgage. But it's perfect for them, and means their last years are safe and sociable and near us, their family.

They could have bought a cheaper retirement flat in a purpose-built block, but it would have been quite shabby by comparison (we looked) and needed a lot of work, which they just wouldn't have been able to contemplate. Buying a flat in a 'regular' block with the possibility of living next door to younger residents making more noise would have been too risky a prospect and of course, would not have come with the additional support. We're really happy with it.

When they die, of course we'll have to take care of the sale, and yes, it's likely to take a long time and the service charges will need to be settled at the eventual completion. So of course we're happy that the right home for them also had low charges. But they will have used their capital well to secure a safe and happy final home for themselves, and that is what it's for. It's not a potential bag of cash for us, their children.

But they will have used their capital well to secure a safe and happy final home for themselves
And for that I applaud them👏
I think that this is a very difficult thing to get right and in my view this is down to a failure of government to properly regulate the housing market. A well-functioning housing market ought to provide for the needs of the population... Seems to me the UK housing market fails on all fronts ☹️👎

BigSkies2022

That's good to know. I am considering sheltered accommodation so that I can be near DD2 in Canterbury. It's the service charges that worry me although currently in my London flat I am already paying quite high charges. The £235 pcm your parents are paying sounds reasonable. Where in Kent are they?

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar i have friend who lives in one of them. I believe they also have a fee deducted for every year they lived there. So the estate won't get the price that was paid. Not being able to leave his flat or complex at all during covid, really damaged his mental health.

I believe they also have a fee deducted for every year they lived there
they sure want that pound of flesh dont they!

I don't think there is a 'fee deducted for every year lived there' on completion of a sale. There is a fixed percentage (1%) of the final sale price , which is called a contingency fee. This is paid to the landlord (M&S) and held in trust in a contingency fund, to be used for the benefit of the tenants of that particular development. The tenants/residents review the accounts each year, and have a say in how the funds are spent, and whether they would like a refund to be distributed or to hold money for future expenditure. I assume that as developments age and require more work and maintenance, the scope for refunds diminish.

Look, like any purchase, you pays your money and you takes your choice.In our case, it was a choice between a safe, spanking new ground floor flat in a very nice managed development 30 minutes from us, and an increasingly unmanageable and dangerous (for two frail elderly people) property 6 hours away. It's important to look at all the details carefully, understand the contract you are getting into, have a good conveying solicitor who will chase down the appropriate deeds of variation/side-letters of assurance, do your sums and make provision for future expenses - as you would in any home purchase.

I agree there is going to be a surfeit of retirement properties. It's yet another aspect of our ageing population. But one way or another, the working and able-bodied population needs to care for 'our' elderly and frail.

What are the retirement apartments offering that justifies service charges of £7.5k - £10k a year

I think the one where my mother-in-law lives (not M&Stone) is about £100 a week, so not quite that expensive. They have staff on duty 24hrs, emergency pull cords in every room, a lunchtime restaurant which will bring food to you if you can't get out, a laundry, a programme of activities and they get 2 hours of cleaning per flat each week.

It's quite an old one though in an urban setting with only smallish gardens; some of the newer ones have gyms, pools, extensive grounds and even listed building status (in a converted historic house).

That's the main thing that puts me off.

I'm puzzled the second hand ones aren't more in demand.

@BigSkies2022 I think this sounds a good solution for you - your only problem would be if your parent requires additional care that can't be provided within the complex and they need to sell the property to pay for residential care .

I'm puzzled the second hand ones aren't more in demand.

Having seen some I'm not surprised. They are often 20+ years old and need refurbishing which no-one wants to have to contend with when moving in.