Developer wants 63% of retirement flat sale price | Property
The anchor of the sheltered housing supplier takes more than 60% of the nest of my widowed sister-in-law Egg, she needs to finance her care house.
She and her late husband bought a retirement apartment of £ 59,995 during an anchor development in the Iminster in the Herefordshire in 2004. She now has dementia and had to leave the apartment in full -time care.
The apartment was estimated at only £ 40,000. At my horror, a clause in acts gives anchoring at 2% of the original purchase price when the property is sold. Not only that, It makes 2% bullets for each year that she lived there, which totals about £ 25,000. This is 63% of the price that we plan to obtain sale.
Mr. Mgr Auckland
The retired houses sector has become known for substantial costs and warnings buried in sales contracts that can affect the resale value and make properties a bad investment.
It is not uncommon for the developers to set up a percentage of the price of resale of a property, but I have never encountered one that bases annual costs on the original purchase price. It seems that anchor rightly had a low confidence in the resale value of development.
A clause as expensive as that which should be clearly indicated in the literature of pre-sale and highlighted by the transport solicitor, but we cannot know if it was done in 2004.
Anchor, a non -profit supplier, told me that the levy was in fact “deferred service fees” for a damping fund to cover major maintenance costs and is separated from the annual service costs of £ 2,856 that your sister pays at the operating costs of the complex.
“The costs are part of a long-term financing model that helps maintain the initial purchase prices and distributes the cost of maintaining and investing in the property throughout its life cycle,” said a spokesperson.
The percentage of sample is “deeply worrying”, according to Paula Higgins, general manager of the Homeowners Alliance campaign group. “In this case, there does not seem to be a ceiling on the amount that the supplier can claim,” she said. “We believe that the net contractual conditions of this nature deserve a more in -depth examination and will host an examination at the sector’s scale in the way these costs are applied.”
Anchor insists that his charges are clear to the point of purchase and that, since your sister-in-law accepted it by signing the contract, you can do nothing. A warning to others who plan to buy a retirement home: study the small print – there may be horrors further.
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