Retirement Apartments

There are some really lovely ones recently built close to where I live. I visited them and was really impressed.
However the service charge was very high and there are restrictions when the time comes to sell.
I'm so pleased I decided not to go ahead.

Maybe a good idea to 'future proof' your present home if that's possible.

What was it called?
I’d be interested in seeing that.

I wouldnt buy one, my mother had one, it took ages to sell, but the charges still applied which myself and brother were liable for. They are hard to sell. It was a real worry for us at the time.

I watched the prog. Last night.
Very sad state of affairs. Similar to park home sites where people buy luxury mobile homes or villas and then the site fees almost double. Totally wrong.

What was the programme? I’m interested as my mother is in a retirement flat .
There’s a lot of negatives regarding selling them and the service fees . However my mother has been happy in hers . She’s been there 11 years and moved from a 4 bed detached house a long way from facilities, to a 2 bed ground floor flat with a patio . She’s a few minutes walk to a high street with everything she needs . She’s made friends , where previously she was isolated. It’s a gated development, so she feels safe and she had parking for when she drove .
We did look at normal flats in the area but heard that some are rented to the LA . At least with retirement flats , there’s no issues with noise or anti social behaviour.
So there are pros and cons .

i have heard of this problem. i guess that it depends how much the apartment has served its purpose ie helping someone have a safe and independent retirement. there should be some sort of safeguards for these ridiculous charges like in the park homes. surely with the now changed private tenancy rules and regulations could there not be a cap put on these charges? this is probably why they are so hard to sell. when people see the high costs they will have to pay after purchasing its enough to make anyone run to the hills

My MiLs retirement flat sold very quickly. It was in a good area where people really wanted to live. Location location location?

I've seen some advertised and they look absolutely wonderful. but the day of reckoning will come when the owner passes and the family are left to pay high service charges possibly for a year or more if they can't sell.

I think they're essentially the same as any other leasehold flat, you pay a service charge which has to be paid until the flat is sold. The only difference is that the service charge in this case is much higher due to the level of services provided, probably hundreds of pounds per month.

I'm not sure what the answer is. If they drop or lower the service charge for empty flats and have several empty flats then they have no income to provide the services for the remaining residents.

I believe they won't allow the flat to be sub-let, so a friend or relative can't move in, and it has to be an older person anyway. They need to find a solution otherwise no-one will want to buy these flats and we really need retirement flats.

My mums flat isn’t Mcarthy and stone or Churchills which has lots of facilities and activities, which you obviously pay for. Mums just has a lounge and does coffee mornings, quizzes, movie and fish and chip nights . They have a manager 9-3 and pull alarms plus a pendant , which goes through to a control centre . So her fees aren’t too bad . Her flat overlooks the gardens and is ground floor and they seem to sell quite well .
As someone upthread said , if it improves the quality of your life , that’s a bonus . My GM lived in a LA flat in south London and had lots of issues with noisy neighbours, anti social behaviour and the communal areas left in a disgusting state .

I once took my 73-ish mother to look at one of these.
She wasn’t impressed anyway - the sitting room window was too high to see out of if you were sitting down, and in any case only overlooked a car park!

But the clincher was the kitchen. ‘Where’s the dishwasher?’ she asked the sales person (early 20s max and over made up).

‘They didn’t think old people would want them.’

Exit my mother in high dudgeon - ‘As if I haven’t done more than enough washing up over the years!’

She remained in her small house (she’d installed a slimline dishwasher shortly after moving in some years previously) until she was 89, when dementia finally more or less forced a move to a care home.

Tenko

What was the programme? I’m interested as my mother is in a retirement flat .
There’s a lot of negatives regarding selling them and the service fees . However my mother has been happy in hers . She’s been there 11 years and moved from a 4 bed detached house a long way from facilities, to a 2 bed ground floor flat with a patio . She’s a few minutes walk to a high street with everything she needs . She’s made friends , where previously she was isolated. It’s a gated development, so she feels safe and she had parking for when she drove .
We did look at normal flats in the area but heard that some are rented to the LA . At least with retirement flats , there’s no issues with noise or anti social behaviour.
So there are pros and cons .

Tenko it was “Tonight” “Buyer Beware, Retirement properties”. on ITV last night.

The market is "age limited", but clearly
the slump in resale value offers an advantage to later purchasers who meet the age requirement !

A widowed acquaintance has bought a one-bed appartment secondhand in a probate sale, at an absolutely bargain knockdown price. It's only a few years old, minimal wear and tear. One careful owner . Less than 2 miles from her daughter and grandchild. Modern, convenient, just right for one.

Witzend, we have a McCarthy and Stone block along the road from here and one side has a car park and back of some houses but the other side has the local cemetery! I wonder if that's why they have always had "for sale" signs outside.
A lady I knew looked at one when she was widowed, her main dislike was that she couldn't have her own washing machine and would have to use communal laundry.

Another development, built a couple years ago are sold on the part rent/part buy idea. They started off with good reports but things soon changed when the fees went up and up. Some people moved out, others were stuck. They too have always had places up for sale, never off the estate agents pages.

We watched this programme and did some online research afterwards. As we suspected, most information suggests that new apartments are sold at inflated prices hence the low resale prices and the companies also charge exit fees when they are resold. Add this to comparatively high maintenance charges and a limited pool of buyers due to age restrictions etc and you can see why buyers are put off.

Primrose53 thank you . I’ll it up

My parents live in one and they are quickly snapped up when one comes up for sale. But as a previous poster says, it’s probably down to location.

Indeed, Meandrogrog, I have a friend in a similar situation. The family have been unable to sell the MIL's very smart retirement apartment, due, the estate agent suggests, to the very high maintenance costs.
The family are left with an empty property, and ongoing maintenance payments .
The leaseholders prohibit offering the apartment for rent.

I don't get the "buyer beware" view. Buyer understand and make sure your family understands is the best way to look at it.

Some retirement developments collect reserve-fund contributions through the regular service charges, while others have a provision requiring a payment on sale. Some leases may have both arrangements. A reserve fund (sinking fund) is a legal requirement. There are two ways this can be done.

- A sinking fund collected through service charges: leaseholders pay contributions periodically, usually annually or quarterly, towards future major repairs and replacements, such as roofing, lifts, communal heating or redecorating.

- A contribution payable on resale: the lease may require the seller to pay a specified amount into the reserve fund when the flat is sold. This is sometimes linked to the sale price or expressed as a fixed fee or percentage times number of years of occupancy.

DD and I have discussed this. She understands the problems which may occur after the owner dies but told me that if I wanted or needed to move to one of these complexes she would be happy to see me in a safe environment.

butterandjam

The market is "age limited", but clearly
the slump in resale value offers an advantage to later purchasers who meet the age requirement !

A widowed acquaintance has bought a one-bed appartment secondhand in a probate sale, at an absolutely bargain knockdown price. It's only a few years old, minimal wear and tear. One careful owner . Less than 2 miles from her daughter and grandchild. Modern, convenient, just right for one.

But by the same token the relative who will be selling the apartment will take a hit. The only person profiting by the reduced price has died.
It is know in this busness that there is no incentive for the managing agents to hurry the sale along as they can be collecting a lot of money per month for maintenance etc.

Not all retirement flats are leasehold or managed in the same way.

aonk

DD and I have discussed this. She understands the problems which may occur after the owner dies but told me that if I wanted or needed to move to one of these complexes she would be happy to see me in a safe environment.

That's great, but just check what she will have to pay out once you're deceased. Can she afford £800 per month, maybe much more. You need to find out the exact amount, what it will cost you to live there and what she will have to pay them for an empty flat.

I've mentioned this before. When I retired, my boss, a Judge, asked me to promise him that I would never to buy a retirement apartment. He said he had to deal with so many clients crying over trying to sell them when a relative died.

I found all these drawbacks to retirement flats when I considered them a couple of years ago. I live in a small town with a great many such flats but there are no alternatives. All flats are leasehold with the high service charges and ground rent and it’s very rare to find one at ground level. Bungalows start at half a million.
My house is quite unsuitable for anyone old but I can’t see any alternative.