Inherited Macartney&Stone retirement flat - anyone rented one out?

[damemaggiescurledupperlip]

We inherited a one-bed retirement flat from DH's parents over a year ago. It has been listed for sale since then, but no real interest.

An alternative would be to rent it out. Has anyone done this in a Macartney and Stone development?

(I don't want to be a landlord, but the ground rent, service charges and double council tax do stack up. We have lowered the price twice, but nothing in the block is selling.)

At some point I expect to see a tv documentary on M+S.

Elderley neighbour moved into one, and it sold for a third of what she paid it after she died. Meanwhile new ones were still on the market at full price, and empty ones on sale not being bought. It’s scandalous

I’d like to see more university campus style living for over 60s. Community based, lots of nice things to do. Care available.

Have you checked with McCarthy and Stone that they allow this? If so, go for it. It’s not selling so renting is a good option.

Change agent, it could be the marketing, if you have Tiktok, take a look at John Savage, he is an estate agent but advises on buying & selling property & also has a network of agents he recommends. Have you thought about asking your agent if they would do an open house to get people in viewing? Very often this can get multiple interested parties & get the ball rolling. I know that MS properties can sometimes be difficult to sell as people are put off by the level of service charges.

Retirement flats were featured on Rip-off Britain a few weeks ago. I'm staggered at the amount of money people have lost. MS seem to be the worst.

They sound lovely to live in, and hence the queue of prospective tenants, but not to own.

The longer you own it the more onerous the SC will likely become. Offload now at any price would be my gut feeling.

My father has one. We knew it was a terrible investment but it suits him completely. He was completely isolated before and now socialising a bit. It’s safe, stress free living. If you take the money out of it then it’s 100% the best move.
I also selfishly hope I’m needed less and the need for a care home is delayed or avoided.
The majority of feedback is people enjoy living in them

The issue is that supply outstrips demand. It’s often not about price, so lowering the price doesn’t work like the mainstream housing market. To be blunt, with some exceptions, owners do not live long in them.

I agree with pp , excellent for the person that moves onto them, maybe not so much for the Executors . It depends massively on the location though. The whole thing has got out of hand as the ‘toxicity’ is now greater than reality , but unless MS help to reset it it will just continue

MS won’t buyback any flat. They will just direct you to their in house estate agents.

If anyone has any experience of handing back the keys and surrendering the lease please could you pm me ? Thank you.

My friend inherited one about 15 years ago and took over two years to get rid of it. Renting it fell through so she was stuck paying all the charges for the flat until she did manage to offload it.

There are loads of them for sale/rent around where I live, right on the south coast, they take years to get shot of.

There are others that are much more affordable, with excellent facilities, care options etc. Just not available to all. Some local authorities would rather rent to a 60 year old who isn’t a home owner than consider a very elderly person who needs to move, they are excluded because they own their own home, even if it isn’t worth enough to buy a retirement property.

Why a healthy 60 year old would want to move into sheltered or supported retirement housing is beyond me, but they do. 60 is often the youngest age for retirement housing, although for some it’s 55! In today’s world, is anyone old at 55?

Can I ask what are the service charges? Thanks

Because not all 55/60 year olds are the same. Some have disabilities, some need care, others are lonely and happy to pay for the support and companionship, some don’t want the maintenance of a house, particularly if they are widowed or single.

I have heard of a private buy to let property owner who focuses on buying M&S at knockdown prices from desperate beneficiaries and has built a portfolio of nice retirement flats to rent out. It’s a great business model for him - I believe his best bargain was a 1-bed flat for £6K.

Quite honestly the people on this thread saying older people can do what they want and cannot be forced to move have NO idea what it is like supporting an elderly person who often doesnt know what they want.

They want to stay in often a large house because they know it (I get that) but need cosntant help and support. They dont have any real plan to manage the property. That is for others to manage. My Father never had a mobile which didnt help. No broadband just muddled on through with my support and until he went into a home. He left his own house is a terrible state.

My Mum's neighbours were calling me saying they were concerned about her.

She was asking people to help her with her mobile. I had two seperate calls about that. She had a assessment after breaking her hip and the therapist took her out with the walker and then called me to say she was just walking out betwen parked cards straight onto the main road. I had many calls like this.

Mum of course told me none of this. Her calls to me involved saying she didnt understand a letter and getting very anxious about any post so in the end I diverted the post to me but that meant I had to deal with whatever query came in.

She did agree to POA which helped but that takes 25 weeks to implement. In the end I had to make a 200 mile round trip. Get her in my car and then take her to the bank to get some third party agreement whilst waiting for the POA to be issued. All when I was working full time, miles away with a Father in a care home.

So, yes, they can do what they like but its funny how we all seem to be involved in supporting these decisions to stay put.

She was also judged as having capacity.

We have a local authoirty run retirement complex near us too. its huge. It is known as a dumping ground that the local authority use to put people in that should really be in a care home.

Its cheaper for them to do it so they just move people with dementia in and wait for the crisis to occur and then move them out to where they should be in the first place.

About £10k from memory

Exactly! I was just about to post something similar.

Not everyone is surrounded by lots of relatives who will step in and support them. I, as an only child with sadly no children of my own, am likely to end up entirely alone in old age.

I probably won't go for an M&S property, but some kind of retirement village living is very appealing to me. I'd like the companionship and the support available if / when required.

Also, I don't think 60 is necessarily as young as some people think. I have had family members who, despite living pretty healthy lifestyles, have had random and sudden illnesses hit them in their 60s. I'd rather be in place rather than scrambling around trying to move in my 70s or 80s!

Yes, I am also expecting a Panorama type documentary about this. Soooooooo many people are going to lose out financially with these (and many already have!)

I know a couple in their mid 70s who have just sold their large 4 bed detached cottage that they've lived in for 40 years, and they have bought one of the M & S apartments. £375,000. With a service charge of around £400 a month. This includes maintenance of the building, maintaining and cleaning and tidying and communal areas, tending the gardens, a site manager, and an emergency call system.

They sold their home for £475,000 even though they could easily have got probably £85,000 to £100,000 more because they wanted to get rid of it. It sold within 3 days of being up for sale. They have 2 sons who have told them they do NOT want this retirement flat leaving to them, as they know it will be a bloody poisoned chalice, and an absolute white elephant. They're obviously pissed off that their inheritance has gone down the river, as most people would be, but they still think their parents are making a huge mistake. And they are! The 2 sons will be refusing the flat if it's 'left' to them.

Someone said (on here) that their relative's retiretment flat sometimes includes people running around after her making cups of tea, doing her laundry, bringing her lunch to her flat, fetching shopping for her, cooking all her meals, but I have never known this in any of these places. I'm sure the vast majority will not do this.

I have also not come across any that are £125 a month service charge, as someone stated further back in the thread, and the service charge will go up and up til it's almost unaffordable.

M & S have a development not a million miles from my village, and we get leaflets advertising these places on a fortnightly basis. Most people in the village have a lovely little bungalow, or a cottage, and we are near the canal, the river, and the woodlands, and in a gorgeous little rural village. Why on earth they think anyone would give this up to live in a little flat with no garden of their own, (next to a big A-road, a big supermarket, a load of pubs, and a big school,) instead of the beautiful place we live in, just baffles me. NO-ONE in my village has taken them up on their offer! 😆

I think McCarthy and Stone flats probably do much better in Scotland, where leasehold is not really a 'thing' and they are mostly freehold. so it's similar to buying a house, but with shared maintenance for the building's structure.

My Mother lived in one for 16 years until she died and it was perfect for her. It had a communal lounge and a laundry with washing machines and tumble driers for residents to use if they wanted. There was an Office Manager on site during the day, and she would check every day that all the residents had either been seen by her or answered a quick phone call, so that she knew they were ok. It wasn't her job to provide any kind of 'care' as such, but it was good to know that no-one was lying for hours in their flat because they had fallen or worse. They didn't have dining facilities for the residents or anything like that though. In 2022 the Maintenance costs were paid twice a year, but worked out at about £140 a month for her 1 bedroom flat.

It had increased in value and it was sold again in July 2025 for a further increase. Flats don't stay empty for very long in that particular development.

It must be awful for those developments where people lose a lot of money when it comes to selling them. But I mention the above, just so that anyone contemplating buying one of these properties and reading this thread are aware that it does seem to be a problem in some areas and not in others, before they are completely put off buying one under any circumstances. It was the best thing my Mother ever did, in her circumstances

Considering state pension age is now 66/67 it would suggest that the majority of us aren’t aging as fast, at 55-60 most people are still working. Of course it’s different if someone has a condition that affects their independence.

They are a real millstone. This is real hard advice and easy for me to say but tbh I’d take whatever price I could get for it to be rid of the hassle and responsibility. One of the many flaws in the whole model is that the person buying the flat isn’t that bothered about the resale.

For a lot of the sheltered schemes, particularly private ones, they don’t need to have a ‘condition’. I’m very surprised that you can’t see why, even a very able person, might want to move into a sheltered complex. See my post below, they might be lonely, frightened to live alone, don’t want the expense/maintenance of a house big garden etc. There are a myriad of reasons and just because you haven’t come across it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I can tell you it does.

Exactly. It’s not their problem.

Those saying it’s scandalous, it may be, but these companies are doing nothing illegal.

It’s a case of buyer beware. (And it helps to have crystal ball to see how long you’re going to live.)

Perhaps as I’m almost 80, with DC in their mid 50s, is why. Downsizing is understandable, but moving into a sheltered type scheme, not so much. However, if that’s what some younger people want to do, it’s their choice.