Would you rather a flat in nice area or house in rough area?

[Weaselgoespop]

First time buyers, limited budget. Can get 2 bed flat in "nice" area however means no garden...

Alternatively, can get a 2 bed terrace with garden in less affluent area...

Interested to hear which others would choose? We have a 2 year old DC who I would prefer to have a garden but not sure if that's reasonable enough to risk the less nice area!?

Depends what you mean by rough.

Yes but most of the time any ground rent will be peppercorn and service charges will be whatever the leaseholders effectively agree.

Location location location!!

unless you’ve got a DC. In which case, you need a garden.

Stretch a bit- nice area, flat but get a ground floor garden one?

It’s nowhere near as simple as that and it would be naive to think it is.

The ignorance around services charges and leaseholds (let alone share of freehold) is actually quite shocking both on MN and in the real world. And let’s not even get into reserve funds and legal obligations.

I literally owned a leasehold (share of freehold) flat for a decade in inner London. I’m also a lawyer and definitely do know what I’m talking about. Every flat is different and owning a share of freehold for a 4 flat converted house compared to a larger building is not the same but London has a lot of the former. The OP has said she’s looking at a share of freehold property.

It is weird how some people think everyone is too stupid to understand leases when there isn’t anything particularly complicated at all.

We have a large leasehold ex ha maisonette with glorious grounds, space for drying clothes and oldish or OK neighbours, the leasehold and charges aren't very high to maintain , in the nicest green part of town, few min to shops on foot

You literally can change location slightly and find something in between that's both nice area and within budget

If there’s unkempt gardens, feral kids and drug issues I’d take a flat but try to get one with a balcony or patio.

Think of the security of the house then. Would you feel safe / secure? I don’t think I would.

I was going to say the flat anyway, but following the update on how bad the bad area is it’s a no brainer.

May be if you share your locations op, people can give you real life info what's like being there

That's not quite accurate. Dreaded service charge in Freehold flat is simply an amalgamation of building insurance, cleaner fees for communal areas (if any), gardener if shared garden is large, costs of necessary works to upkeep the building. So the service charge is simply a rough monthly cost estimate to look after the building you're own. Exactly the same as it is with a house, a lot of house owners spend even more because they have nobody to share all those costs with.

No ground rent, because you are a freeholder, so you would be effectively paying it to yourself, which makes no sense.

We need this location due to our jobs and family support for our DC (Not in nursery)

Thank you this was very helpful, I was getting confused at a lot of the comments regarding service charges.

I hope you're finding it helpful 🙂 im still unsure on what to decide!

Just to follow up:

I have went and visited the house location twice now, once in afternoon and at night - both times the street was very quiet! I am wondering if I'm being overly judgemental of the area now...

You could be bold and go and knock on the next door and say hi to the neighbours? People have done that to us before

.

And what of the schools?

With leasehold only flats its much less in your control because external management company is a freeholder so they can charge you what they like to an extent. When you own share of freehold and all freeholders choose to manage the building themselves, you’re actively involved and making decisions on what you are paying when etc etc., so although it is still called service charge, you aren’t paying for nothing. You paying collectively to upkeep and insure the building. And the share for these costs normally is determined by the size of your flat. Ie ours is the largest in the building, so our costs are slightly higher compared to smaller flats.

The primary schools are pretty even tbh however secondary school is better in the nicer area.

I vote flat then. It won’t be your forever home but it is easier to resell in a better area. Even if you don’t use the secondary, other buyers would see it as a plus.

Be careful with the rough area OP. We had a larger house on the outskirts of a rough area and did get some antisocial behaviour around us and it wasn’t nice walking out with the kids sometimes. We moved in the end to a smaller house in a safer area and don’t regret it.

I lived in a freehold flat and we had exactly the same problems. A board of directors made up of some residents could charge what they liked. They spent the sink fund on cctv and an architect for a fancy glass lift when it was needed for essential building repairs, then demanded £300 a month in service charge.

If the flat is a small building and you can really have a say in the management and service charge, it’s not so much of a risk.

But if the building is large and there are communal areas that require power and cleaning, or gardens that require maintenance, or lifts that may need repairing, or security personnel, or they own part of the road, all these things can add up.
Not to mention issues with listed buildings, cladding etc.

And if you can’t easily have a say in setting the service charge, or how the sink fund is managed, you can end up in a bad situation.

Houses are expensive too, but if my house needs a new roof and boiler I can get a quote and budget for them. If I live in a flat, they can demand a levy or raise the service charge, for things I’d consider non essential.

I’m one of those people who like her property maintained, so I wouldn’t mind cctv, nice glass and nice communal areas. To me it sounds essential. But if you’re one of the people who only spends on property when the roof is falling down, then yes, house is better option. This also the reason why a lot of the houses are in terrible state in London.

However, you do get a say, it’s just that things the building owners, including yourself is spend on is decided by majority of votes.

Also you can easily tell by the communal areas when viewing, window/door condition whether building owners like to spend on maintenance or not. We’ve been to some shocking flat viewings, old stinky carpets, scuffed walls, hallway turned into dumping ground of everyone’s stuff they don’t want to keep in the flats. Yeah I prefer to pay a little to have nice surroundings.