Morning all. This is directed at PMRpro, but I don’t know how to tag someone into a post.
We had a conversation a few days ago about service charges at leasehold properties. oddly enough there was coverage on our local TV station only yesterday about the extortionate increase in service charges landlords are now wanting to charge. Some have doubled the cost, and even trebled. It’s criminal!
[I guess this isn’t completely off topic, as we had been talking about managing with things as we’re getting older]
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Doraflora
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Isn't the government about to do something about leasehold? I have one property that is not only leasehold but also Grade 2 Listed. Not sure which aspect is worst!!!
I watched the programme and was horrified that some were trapped, one woman paying £10,000 per year and unable to sell the flat. The current govt. are supposedly going to forward legislation but no details specified. Many of us may decide to go for one story living out of necessity but flats may not be the answer, bungalows are very expensive so leaves us in a dilemma. I will be facing this in the spring. The best option is a building with a share of the freehold I think, rare though.
It’s certainly a predicament. As you say, bungalows are expensive and rare as hens teeth in some desirable areas, unless you want something that needs extensive works on it. [We’ve done all that and got many t-shirts too🤣]
You can rest assured this govt will be slow at doing anything about it, that’s if they do.
Don't confuse them all - even worse than some leaseholds are the retirement units like McCarthy and Stone (other companies exist), The annual service fee is often more than that and must be paid even after the elderly owner dies. The flats have lost the majority of their value as well so the family are stuck. The rest of Europe manages flats well - typical UK to make a pig's ear of it! My flat here is perfect - except it is a long way from family. So eventually I will be moving in with my daughter - in my own self-contained part of the house. Once I've built it ...
I had heard this from a family member who lived in a McCarthy and Stone flat. They found it so difficult to sell. We have lost touch with them so not sure if they managed to sell
I did a lot of research because in theory they are an ideal solution - the design is almost identical to my flat here. There have been cases of flats bought for £180K+ but a struggle to sell at £70K. When my MIL could no longer live alone we were just returning to the UK and we bought a house with 2 spare rooms on the ground floor that could be made into an ensuite bedroom and living room for her. Here we have loads of small flats ideal for the purpose - and even over 20 years ago any new building of more than 3 levels had to have a lift. There is also a wide range of add-on lifts that can be added outside a house with access onto a balcony or directly into a room.
Don't know really. Flats are the norm here and often 3 or 4 generations of the same family live in one building that is split into individual flats - and in Italy, often within the same household which was actually part of the problem in Covid because the eldest generation were vulnerable to the virus brought home from work and school, same in the UK with ethnic families who also often live like that, Here they are just catching up with the concept of sheltered housing - for the singles who don't have family for support. People seem to be healthier as they age here - still going out for a walk every day in their mid-80s and beyond. And fiercely independent.
It is certainly a lot easier to live in a flat as you age than a house with stairs. OTOH, there is next to no online food shopping! But people go out to the village shop to fetch supplies though there are more and more villages without one. My village has everything in the Market part - but the surrounding hamlets have zilch now. We have a supermarket, butcher, baker, PO. 2x banks, 2x relatively upmarket clothes shops, 3x restaurants/cafes, 2x flower shops, multiple hairdressers and a pharmacy. An excellent bus service - and usually trains into town but that is about to be suspended for a year while they do major rail works. It'll be a pain getting to the hospital - currently 2 stops up the line as it has its own station!
Well we are very fortunate living in this house, even though it is too big now. It’s only 4 yrs old, so no major maintenance costs.
We’ve got lots in the so-called “village”, (a 10-minute walk away), 2 supermarkets, our doctors &/pharmacy, library, opticians, 2 butchers and bakers (no candlestick maker) and we have an excellent bus route, plus on a good day we can walk to our local hospital.
My absolute ultimate is for us to get a bungalow in the next village- where my heart always is.
Not sure I'd bother with the move - that is what our criteria were when we bought this!! Lots can be done to adapt a house, Moving is a pain!! No candlestick maker - but a string instrument maker, shoemaker and a 2 shops that sell candles!
We have moved 6 times in 51 years so we’re quite experts at it, and to be quite honest, we both want something smaller now, easier to run and with a smaller garden too. It is expensive to run and when we bought it we never anticipated hubby getting a spine condition which restricts him and will do more as time goes on.
And as we’re getting steadily older, both our hearts want to be in the village where we lived for a number of years and had family also living there - overall 35 years.
We’ve now got no family close to us (son is 200 miles away, daughter in Oz) and we want to be where our friends are around us.
The last sentence? I have always thought the likelihood of finding what I have here in the UK is very small - you seem to have succeeded!!! Just wondered what area it was!!
When I applied for my UK pension I had to provide a list of everywhere I had lived in the UK to prove an affiliation with the UK since I'd already moved here. It came to over 20 different addresses. House move every time ...
Crikey. 20?? Thought we were bad enough with 6 moves.
We’re here in Grimsby, north east lincs. Pretty dire in some respects, but some nice areas too (like anywhere). And only a few miles from our coast. Plus our house prices are very reasonable.
Haven’t got time to read the whole post, but butting in as my husband was born & lived first 16 years in Cleethorpes! He doesn’t admit it often! But then he joined the Navy! Ihave lots of step relatives living in the area. Actually, the last place either of us would want to live, we understand why the housing is so cheap there…but we could afford a detached mansion up there! It’s sad because the family are about 6 hours drive away…but, as Doraflora says…pretty grim!
I know…would be weird. David has just turned 87. Do you know what secondary school your husband went to? What was his name, please? Worthwhile to find out, even though, sadly your husband has gone, as it would have meant more to him. His Uncle ran a wet fish shop in the square near the seafront…his Aunt prepared all the seafood! But we didn’t go there that often tbh! As David was in the Navy after an early start, they were used to ‘not seeing him’!! S xx
My David would be 73 now so not that likely, his brother Michael would have been 80 this year. They both went to the grammar school - don't remember the name, Matthew Humberstone? BUT both their father and (very much later) stepfather had been fish merchants who may well have supplied the fish shop and they almost certainly knew each other. Their father was Harold Harrison, his wife WInifred continued to "run" the business after he died (was really the manager who did it all!), She then married Winston Kirton after both boys had left home for uni - he was a bigwig in the Cleethorpes Masons, the Lodge was on the corner of Cromwell Road where they lived. David worked the boating lake in the summers.
Shame…too big a gap, sad he died so young…it’s why I thought he was older. My David had a brother 11 years younger than he was…but, sadly he died a few years ago. Oh, the fish connection is really interesting. Sadly there’s nobody left in David’s family who would know those answers, apart from his cousin, but she married a USA airforce pilot, & lives in Albuquerque!! David used to row on the boating lake…& loved it…long skiff like boats! Sadly,he doesn’t remember any of the names you mentioned, sad, as if any of his relatives & your David were still here, I think it would have been a lot of fun! David hardly lived there once he escaped to join the Navy…but he was back in that area from 20-ish to 25-ish…& that’s why his first wife & his three children and grandchildren, & great grandchildren all live in the area! Lots of them!! David remembers Cromwell Road, he just said! S x
My David had next to no relatives! His mother had a brother and I am still in contact with those cousins. Not like when we were kids - your parents and grandparents could recite all the family connections couldn't they!!
Yes! I agree! But now in my family there are only 4 relatives left. Just 4. My cousin (divorced) & 3 grown up children with no offspring! My brother emigrated to Australia & died 5 years ago, my Dad was dumped on an Aunt & Uncle when he was 5 as his parents divorced, & was adopted later. He had a brother, but their Mum kept him, just said she couldn’t bring up two of her own. My Mum had one sister, she died last year. End of ‘us’!! S x
Hello Doraflora…my step family all live around your area, Grimsby, Immingham, Cleethorpes etc! My father & mother in law used to gave pub in a small village called brocklesby…the Brocklesby Ox (but think it’s knocked down now). My fave stepdaughter wants to live back in Cleethorpes, & the other one has just moved to Grimsby from Cleethorpes! I’m wondering where you live now, & which is the village you’d like to move to? My hubby would love to know. He liked growing up in Cleethorpes with 5he sea right there, but then it seemed to nearly merge with Grimsby, & when we went to my stepson in laws funeral David didn’t recognise half the roads! We looked at some estate agents, & the house prices were more than half the ones we have here!! S x
Thank you for the info: so interesting to learn something about daily life in the villages. I’ve never been to Italy but have holidayed in a number of European countries where everything was so clean!
Bear in mind I don't really live in Italy - as far as this region is concerned Italy is tantamount to "foreign"! Italian wines appear under foreign wines lists!! Until the end of WW1 it belonged to the AustroHungarian Empire and is still a very Germanic mixture.
That’s interesting and something I hadn’t realised although I should have done. Your village and life style seems peaceful and comfortable, long may it last
Today has been a lovely example - Dumpling Sunday, literally thousands of dumplings/Knoedel made by a social association, KVW, originally basically a Union I suppose. and served to raise funds for a charity - this year, Alzheimers. Most of the village turned out for lunch for a donation. Bread dumplings and salads and drinks, water, soft drink, juice and even a half litre of wine on every table to help yourself! In 2 weeks there is a free one for the seniors in the village, member of the union or not. In Lent there will be Soup Sunday - same idea, soup for a donation.
Then I and the friend who'd invited me to join her - I feel a bit of a prat turning up there on my own though a lot do - went for a quick coffee before she went home for coffee and cake with the grandchildren. Loads of people out for a walk - thin covering of snow, cleared frozen hiking paths and sunny, just a very thin veil of cloud, and not a breath of wind. Glorious! It is barely above freezing - but feels really comfortable out there.
I've handed day to day costs over to the daughter who lives there!! They like it and it is perfect for them really. If we can find a solicitor she gets it all now - not waiting until I die, try and reduce what the gubmint gets. There is something indecent about saving money for your old age that you have already paid tax on and then it gets taxed all over again!!
Too right! Mine is in Trust for disabled son. I am in process of buying freehold for other one where 102 mother lives! No-one told me life gets more complicated the older one gets!
Definitely go for share of Freehold. We bought the Freehold just after we moved here, and charges for maintenance, which is all we pay per year are now £1,700. Train is 2 minutes away mainline to London, Bus stops outside the door, and shops around the corner-perfect.
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