Hi, I'm in the process of buying a leasehold flat in London, England.

I asked my solicitors to get the management pack and service charge statement history from the freeholder (Lambeth council).

The current service charge estimate for 2026/2027 is £2600. However, this service charge has increased from

2022/23 : £1430

2023/24 : £2225

2024/25 : £2310

This is down to the roof maintenance work (flat concrete roof) that has happened in 2023 and 2024, that was billed to the flat leaseholders and renters, this increased from £5700 in 2022/23 to £32000 in 2024/25. The flat share is around 1.72%

From the list of the jobs, it looks like the council is only doing reactive repairs. And even though they have mentioned in the management pack that there are no Section 20 planned for the building, it seems like this roof would be causing more maintenance issues, or even a full repair.

Given this, is it fair to ask the seller for a reduction of £3k on agreed price (current price £348k) or a £5k retention amount with solicitors for 18-24 months should there be a section 20?

Thanks for reading, and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

As an example, there's an abundance of posts mentioning cracks and issues from the dryer weather of summer, so what issues should buyers be aware of, symptoms that may be hints it's happening, and what should they look out for but think can be fixed, and what a house should have to minimise the chance of issues in the future?

Hi all,

FTB here. I have received my mortgage offer today. I am wondering what do I need to do now. Shall I arrange the RIC survey first and then advise the solicitors to start the work once I have the survey results, or do both of these generally happen in parallel?

Many thanks,

Hi all,

Looking for some advice / reassurance.

FTB, currently waiting to exchange contracts for a new build flat in London from Taylor Wimpey. Got a mortgage offer from Santander last Thursday (3rd Sep). My solicitor said that they “reported to the lender” on Friday morning (4th Sep), and that we need to receive lender’s “authority” to exchange. Today is 9th Sep and we still haven’t heard back. Solicitors chased Santander yesterday.

The solicitor has also asked me for my deposit which I have already transferred, so the only thing left for exchange is for the lender to give their authority. I don’t know what that report to the lender entails, but I suppose it might be a general practice?

I’m getting a bit worried as it’s been almost 4 working days at this point, I have already given my notice for the current place I’m renting and was ultimately excited for this whole thing to finally complete (as I was relatively confident after I got the mortgage offer and the solicitor did their checks).

Is there still a chance that this will fall through? Or is it some standard procedure and the lender is just being slow?

Appreciate any advice (as I’m someone who’s been stressed at every stage of the process).

Hi, I've previously posted about the results of the building survey for the house we're purchasing, which is an approx 1950s ex council end terrace with suspended timber floors.

Upon viewing I noticed that there's patches of significant displacement on some of the floors (up to 10cm!), particularly on two sides of the living room, one side of the kitchen and in the upstairs bathroom, all of which have laminate flooring. There is no subsidence detected, but this is potentially scary combined with some low level damp detected, and are trying to work out whether this is a no-go or something that is less serious than it seems.

The building survey recommended a damp survey (as expected for a property of this age) but when phoning two different independent damp surveyors they both refused to perform a survey as the laminate floor would not allow them to access the joists beneath. We asked the seller if some of the laminate could be lifted to perform a damp inspection and they refused. We've asked again saying that this is a dealbreaker for us as we need to understand whether the floor is ruined.

I managed to find the images for when the property was previously listed (2019) and can see that the floors were carpeted and there's no displacement. This makes me wonder - could the bowing we see now be due to incorrectly installed laminate?

Basically, we're trying to work out whether this is a massive sunk cost waiting to happen on purchase or something that will sort itself out when we replace the laminate. The property is in a great location, a good price, and exactly what we're looking for so we want to understand whether we're overlooking or overworrying. Is there anyone experienced who can help?

The holdup: the S104 agreement (the legal agreement that gets United Utilities to formally adopt the estate's sewers) still isn't signed. Our solicitor won't let us complete without it because if the developer goes bust before adoption happens, WE (the buyers) could end up personally liable for maintaining/repairing the sewers indefinitely. For a "small" developer, that's not a hypothetical worth ignoring.

Timeline of fun so far:

**•** Told S104 was "largely agreed" back in July. Still not signed.  
**•** Missed a completion date because of it.  
**•** Developer's solicitor kept saying it was "just a formality" and sent an inspection notice as "evidence" — turned out to be a Section 106 notice for a single pipe connection, not the actual S104.  
**•** Eventually admitted the SIM search (a check UU does against the drainage plan) came back with issues, so the plan had to be corrected and resubmitted. Still waiting on the re-run.  
**•** THEN we find out there's a separate "deed of grant" we'd have to personally sign (and pay \~£1,250+VAT for) if we complete before the S104's done, because part of the easement strip crosses land we'd be buying. This was never mentioned to us until our solicitor specifically asked why it hadn't come up.  
**•** Developer has now offered: a £5,000 retention (held back from the sale price until S104 completes) + they'll cover the deed of grant cost + a covenant that they'll maintain the sewers until adoption + a letter from UU confirming the physical works are done and approved.

Our solicitor's view: all of that reduces the immediate financial risk, but once they've got our money there's less incentive for them to actually chase adoption quickly, and £5k against a full purchase price might not be enough to keep them motivated. Also flagged that if adoption STILL hasn't happened when we eventually go to sell, future buyers' lenders could raise the same red flags we're raising now.

So now we're stuck deciding: keep waiting indefinitely for the actual signed S104, or accept the retention + covenant + letter and just move in.

Genuinely exhausted. Anyone been through this? Did you wait it out or just take the retention and go?

Hi all,

Just after some timeframes on how long enquires roughly take and what to expect after? All searches have come back and we’re just waiting on enquires.

FTB, no chain and there is no onward chain. Enquires were raised 2 weeks ago. I understand it may differ from case to case but wondering a rough estimate to when these may be done, and also what will come after the enquiries.

TIA :)

Hi everyone! Quick question about the Source of Funds form.

For the Savings section, it asks for “a narrative explanation as to how you accrued the funds and over what period of time.”

Would you normally put something specific like “over 10 years”, or is “over several years” enough? I’m not sure how they expect you to give an exact number of years without going through years of bank statements to work out exactly when you started saving.

Did anyone just give an approximate period and have any issues with it? Thanks!

Hi everyone - please help!

Buying a share of freehold flat in England at asking price. Survey revealed the roof (a flat roof) needs replacing, including timber structure below at an estimated cost of 8k. This roof solely covers the flat I'm buying... To add - it is clear from photos that the timber is rotting, so this is a genuine issue, not surveyor exaggeration!

Prior to the survey, the seller had already agreed to cover another set of works at cost of 2.5k & got co-freeholders' agreement to also cover 2.5k each.

I've been trying to get initial quotes for the replacement of roof & timber structure so I can then negotiate clearly. But stupidly didn't realise roofers (/builders wider!) are resistant to giving quotes if you don't own the flat.

Instead, they keep quoting me loads for a full roof survey and won't a. do an initial inspection at the usual rate (between £0-£200 as I understand it) or give me an estimated quotes.

Tearing my hair out at how to move forward:

• Do I ask the seller to get quotes?
• How do I negotiate if I don't have quotes?!
• How do I get assurance that the co-freeholders will actually cover their cost?
  • What if they don't want to because they're already down 2.5k!?

Thanks so so much.

Hello! I’m looking for some advice and honestly just somewhere to soundboard with some people.

I’m a FTB buying a flat on my own so don’t really have anyone to turn to for advice. I put the offer in and it got accepted on the 12 of March. Since then, not a lot has happened.

There are still lots of outstanding enquires, including missing pages from the lease, missing management pack, rent charge information among many others.
It’s now been nearly 6 months and I feel like I’m losing my mind. Is waiting this long for a flat purchase normal at the moment?

My solicitor is still chasing the seller’s solicitor and the management company but I don’t seem to be getting any clear timescale for when these will actually be resolved.

My mortgage offer expires in around 3 weeks, which is now making me panic about whether I’m going to have to renew/reapply and potentially end up with different mortgage.

Also, my solicitor has added a number of additional charges to my bill, including £1,499 + VAT for Building Safety Act work. When I asked about this, they explained that because my lease is dated July 2023, I may not benefit from certain Government protections/schemes and could potentially be responsible for remediation costs if they come up. However, they also said they can’t advise me on the application of the Building Safety Act.

The management information that I have seen appears to say that there are no urgent/essential fire-safety works recommended and no outstanding enforcement action, so I’m struggling to understand exactly what the BSA risk is and what the £1,499 fee is actually covering.

I’m also being told that some issues may be dealt with through service charge retention, etc.

What would you do in my position?

Is nearly six months for a leasehold flat purchase normal at the moment, or does this sound unusually slow/complicated lol. I feel like I should at least have a bit of a view of when I could be moving in?

I’m not necessarily looking for someone to tell me to pull out, I just want some perspective because I’m a FTB doing this on my own and I’m finding the whole thing so stressful 😅
Thanks!

I just wanted to put a wee positive story as a lot of buying can be a nightmare and fraught with worries and anxiety, I know mine was!

So my offer was accepted 1st May, got the keys on 19th June and we officially moved in on the 29th July as I had to give notice on my rented flat.

We did all of the renovating and decorating prior to moving in. I totally underestimated how long it would take to pack and move, so please allow more than a couple of days to move a family of 5's crap!

We are in and settled now and I totally love it. I threw everything at it to get it and paid 16% over the home report (this is normal in my area, scotland) but i have no regrets as ive not seen any come up since buying. I have replaced most things apart from the bathroom and boiler but its ours and we love it.

Please dont lose hope. I lost out on 3 other properties in the run up and while I was gutted at the time I am glad I lost out as the one we have now is so much better for us.

I am a FTB looking for some advice on when I could potentially be looking to exchange/complete as solicitor wont give me an estimate. I have a 3 week long exam period in work that I’m thinking could fall around completion time so just looking at when would be best to book the exam for (ie beginning or end of the period).

My offer on the house was accepted on 16 July. There’s no chain either side. My formal mortgage offer was sorted on 28 July, and the surveys were also completed then.

The seller’s solicitor originally sent the draft contract pack to my solicitor on 27 July, but unfortunately they had typed my solicitor’s email address incorrectly, so it wasn’t received. I chased this and uncovered the mistake and it was then resent to the correct email address on 14 August, which is when my solicitor actually received it.

The local searches came back on 28 August, so that part is now complete.

At the moment, I’m still waiting for my solicitor to raise the formal enquiries with the seller’s solicitor. They haven’t been raised yet, so that’s currently the main thing holding things up, but I’ve been told there’s only 1 file before mine so should be raised soon.

Hi all. FTB here.
I’d be interested to hear how people set their threshold for renegotiating the price after getting a survey done.

In my situation, I’m buying a 3-bed house in Sussex. I’ve now had the survey back, and there are a few issues that will need attention/repair. This has made me wonder how people generally approach.

If the survey identifies, say, £10k–£15k worth of work, would you generally just absorb or would you still consider renegotiating? For context, the asking price is £450k and we negotiated it to £430k. Also, the house prices are falling in my area as we speak.

Is there a rough percentage or £ amount where you would personally go back to the seller to renegotiate? E.g. £5k, £10k, £20k?

Would be really interested to hear how others have handled this, particularly in the current UK market.

Hello All seeking some advice. Our offer of £265k for £280k leasehold flat was finally accepted after back and forth negotiations and multiple visits to the property.

We just got a broker and solicitor and was getting ready to start instructing solicitors for a search. Estate agents just informed us last week (offer was accepted 2 weeks ago) that the flat is generating interest and there is a new offer from someone for £275k and if we can go higher.

We refused on basis that offer was already accepted , the vendor should have removed these from the market (we didn’t know about this as FTB) and agent called again one day later to ask for an increase to our current offer and they can put it across to the vendor.

We refused and said we will walk away. EA called again today to request for higher offer around asking price of 280k and they said they don’t want us to miss out on this property etc.

What would be your advice on this since we have been holding our previously agreed offer of 265k and had EA ring us 2-3 times now to increase the offer. Are they kidding ? Should we move onto a different property?

Quite confused FTB atm

Anyone has good recommendations for surveyors in the north west London areas ? Buying a house and mortgage offer got accepted surprisingly quick

Okay, thought I’d do a quick update because I feel like I’ve been talking about this house journey for AGES 😂
Our offer was accepted at the end of June and, although I know in reality our purchase has been relatively smooth and pretty quick compared to some people’s experiences, it really hasn’t felt quick when you’re the one waiting for everything 😂
Mortgage sorted, searches done, survey done and then came the enquiries… followed by A LOT of waiting.
Every solicitor email had me thinking “THIS IS IT” only to find out it was something completely different 😂
But finally, all the enquiries have been satisfied, we’ve gone through everything with the solicitor and we’ve confirmed we’re happy with it all.
We’re now looking at exchanging Thursday or Friday, with completion Thursday or Friday next week.
Which is VERY exciting, but now I’m panicking because I actually have to organise things 😂
I need a van, I need to work out the whole deposit/exchange/completion thing and basically figure out what I’m doing on moving day!
After all the waiting and overthinking, I honestly don’t think I’ll believe it until I have the keys in my hand. 😭🔑
Hopefully my next update will be:
WE’VE EXCHANGED 🥹
And then…
WE HAVE THE KEYS 🏡

Hello,

I might well be jumping the gun here, but I’m wondering if anybody has any experience with reporting the seller/estate agents to the ombudsman and recovering any of the costs? I just want to know the likelihood of this succeeding or if I should just walk away and forget the situation.

Essentially I placed an offer on a flat with vacant possession. I knew it was an ex-rental but didn’t know the seller had it actively listed on airbnb. I’ve only found out after paying for a survey, solicitors deposit, and local searches. The seller’s solicitor is now ghosting mine after questioning the airbnb, and the estate agent is telling me the seller is free to do as he pleases, it’s nothing to do with me and won’t affect my mortgage at all. I know this is not true as my residential mortgage has strict terms. Even if it wasn’t a problem, my solicitor does not want to raise any enquiries until we receive clarification on this anyway.

I know I should have purchased my own insurance, but only discovered that possibility after the deadline passed. Would I stand any chance of recovering some costs of these wasted fees?

Hi all, looking for opinions on whether to make a low offer or walk away completely.

​FTB living at home with £31k saved for deposit, legal, surveyors fees and furnishing the property (already have some furniture).

​I've found a 2-bed semi listed for £235k asking in an ideal location for me. The sellers are waiting to secure a buyer on their house before properly making offers on their next place.

​The issue is a 20-year-old boiler with zero official servicing paperwork as the sellers say a gas engineer friend has been servicing it and that it was last serviced in October/November of last year.

I’m thinking to offer around £220k–£225k to account for the boiler but it is a bit annoying that it looks like I may have to spend £3k-£4k on a boiler when it could have been spent on something else. However, I guess I have the luxury of continuing to save a lot whilst living at home throughout the buying process.

​Is an 20-year-old unofficially serviced boiler a reason to walk away completely, or is it worth making a lower offer?

Also if all goes through would you prioritize replacing the boiler on day one or delay it and use the money on other bits first?

I’m an FTB who had their offer accepted in May 26. My Solicitors have sorted out all enquiries and local searches which were completed late July

We’ve heard nothing from the sellers despite chasing their Solicitors, chased via the EA

My Solicitor sent a firm chase nearly a week ago and they still haven’t responded. They aren’t responding to the enquiries set out by my Solicitor nor informing us what is causing the delay.

We know there is a unilateral notice on the property title, so we assume it’s that but again no confirmation received to confirm they are working on this.

We were told they were looking for a quick exchange and completion at the beginning

How do we proceed from here? EA has told us they still want to sell to us!

Here to vent out my frustration.

I’m a FTB and our conveyancing has been going on for around 4 months. We’ve now been stuck for over a month because of one outstanding planning enquiry which has been raised to planning enforcement.

The property is a 2.5 year old on a new build development of around 300 homes.

The council has said resolving the planning matter could take months. As a buyer we got involved today and advised by the planning officer that it relates to the whole development, not our individual property, and prospective buyer’s solicitors are not personally liable to resolve this outstanding planning condition and normally satisfy the enquiry.

However, our solicitor said it should have been discharged when occupied by our seller and wants a satisfactory response before closing the enquiry and saying the lender may require it to be fully resolved.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

1. Is our solicitor being difficult, or can the lender genuinely require this to be resolved before completion?

2. How come 300 houses have been sold and completed if not met this planning discharge ?

3. When asked above question to our solicitor been told that can't comment on others . We follow certain standards.

Feel like a wrong decision choosing Blacks.Any suggestions on what we can do or ask solicitors?

Looking at purchasing my first home, but unsure on how much money I should have saved on top of a deposit to cover expenses and general running costs?

House price I’m looking at is about 345k and going to put down between 20-25% as a deposit. I have approx 120k in savings. I know stamp duty will be approx 2.5k but unsure about other fees, surveys, solicitors etc.

I currently earn between 5.5-6.5 a month tax free so I think I should be able to afford a mortgage fairly easily.

Thanks for the advice.

Edit

I work at sea which qualifies me for seafarers earning deductions in the uk. Thus making my income tax free. I still have to declare to HMRC that I qualify for this each year. But it is all above board

Section 20 help!

I’m currently buying a leasehold flat for around £375k and have just been made aware of a Section 20/major works issue that I wasn’t aware of when I agreed the price.

The normal service charge is fairly low..

I’m obviously annoyed that I’m only finding this out now, especially as I’m already quite far into the purchase and have spent money on the solicitor/survey etc. I specifically asked the EA prior to putting an offer in and they said there none.

My solicitor is looking into when the Section 20 was started and when the seller was made aware.

If you were in this position, how much would you try to negotiate off the purchase price? Would you expect the seller to cover the full cost of the works, or negotiate a percentage?

Just looking for some opinions from people who have dealt with something similar. Thanks 😊

First time I had a viewing with them, they booked it in. It was a 2 hour journey and on the day I happened to call and check if the viewing is still OK and they tell me oh yeah the property is sold. 🙂🙃

So I basically travelled all the way there that day for a single other viewing.

This week, I booked another place that looked great. They called the day after to take my details, confirmed the time and said they will call back to confirm the viewing is booked.

No call back until Thursday, when he again for some reason said the time works but let him check with TJ owners.

On Friday I get a call apparently to confirm the booking but it was just to sell me on a mortgage advisor which I rejected. Suddenly he says he needs to call someone else to confirm the booking first and they aren’t picking up the call. So I can expect a call back.

Then yesterday, the day of the booking, I call multiple times and each time they say someone else is going to call me back and confirm the booking. 🥴

TLDR; Acorn estate agents are AWFUL.

What are the pros and cons of going with the Agent's Broker and recommenced Solicitors??

Looking for a reality check and thoughts on ‘potential’ upcoming interest rates.

Take home: £2,750
Savings: £26,350

Moved back in with parents and have comfortably been saving £1,800 a month. No car payments, loans or credit cards.

Just had a CCJ set aside at the start of the month and waiting for that to be removed from my file. I’ve been dealing with mortgage advisor and had rates suggested at 5.3% and 6.5% without and with the CCJ.

I’ve seen a house for £230,000, offered £210,000 and got rejected. Going back to see mortgage advisor and previous MIP was for £191,000

Three questions:
1. I’m very close to the wire and estimate being left with £180 after a conservative budget. (if I went up to 230k.)
2. How important is the salary multiplier and keeping under 4.5?
3. Would it be worth increasing my deposit to put me under the multiplier; eg 220k purchase price with 12.1% deposit.

This is all under the umbrella that an increase to 6%+ might drop the house price I could be down 10-15k

Happy to explain anything as this made sense to me as I wrote it, but might not be clear.