Housing Association admin fees

After my mother's experiences of living in a Sanctuary Housing Independent Living flat I think I'd rather live in a garden shed.

She was charged for facilities like the library, cinema, coffee lounge, function room etc. She couldn't use them because she was bedridden. She could only go to the one social function she loved - Melody Hour - if a carer could be bothered to take her.

There were offices everywhere. Visiting families had to park out in the main road because the car park was taken up by staff cars. This made it difficult when you were lugging in shopping and laundry and when the lift broke down my mother's friend was marooned on the top floor for five weeks!!

I'm so glad she was renting her flat because I've heard horror stories just like Mishap's.

Care of the elderly is a nice earner for some.

These stories are disgraceful.

I don't think it's much better if a "retirement flat" is purchased. My mum looked at some and the monthly charges were around £180. She didn't like the flats so we didn't take it any further but I believe there are all sorts of other costs - introductory ones and a charge if the elderly person wants to sell or dies. Also, they're really difficult to sell on and can't b e rented out.

Everything these days seems to be a rip-off and there seems to be no concern for people - just a concern as to how much money can be extracted from them.

I am thinking of downsizing next year and did wonder about using a Housing Association.But now-No way-Thanks for the warning.

I used to work for a HA- rife with bureaucracy which is costed to the customer - shocking!

Do not know. They said take it or leave it. They converted my parents house and the one next door, both with seven bedrooms, into flats for youngsters who were leaving homes and needed to find out how to cope on their own, called Doorstep at the time. So they had the buildings to do up, but they would get a large amount of rent from the houses anyway.

How do the housing associations justify taking so much money?

When my parents sold their house to a housing association and moved into a housing association flat, they were charged 25% of the price of the house. We thought that most unfair too, considering they were going to be paying rent for the rest of their lives to the association.

That's appalling. Admin charges seem to just way for a company to rip people off. A friend just moved into rented accommodation and had to pay the agent nearly £800 in admin fees. This was for a house that costs £299 a month to rent.