Buying private flat in a Cpuncil owned block

[Muddle2000]

Most are still council owned Building looks in good nick.
Any wise things to watch out for?

Huge, huge, huge bills. The council don't ever look for best value, they have preferred contractors. So if they decide to get a new roof and ask you for 10k you'll have to pay it.

I was just going to say the same. I'm a HA tenant, but there are 2 private flats in our block of six. One of the owners has been saying that the HA is looking at improvements and she's scared because they're looking at around £25,000 that they don't have in order to pay for it.

Ask them when the last set of major repairs were carried out - such as replaced the roof, works to the drains etc. If it was fairly recently I would go ahead and seriously consider it. If it's never been done, or more than 15 years ago I would walk away because big bills are on their way.

Do they still have communal heating? Because those aren’t price controlled, they buy on the open market. Last winter when everyone’s fuel bills had doubled in a year, theirs had more than tripled for some periods of time.

Yes bills basically.

Councils are much more "diligent" in keeping flats in good repair in general - of course there are some horrifying exceptions to this.

But they could decide that part of the building is not up to standard for some obscure reason and land you with a share of a massive repair charge. I think tower blocks are a particular issue for this, because works on them can be very expensive.