2 ms·

There are benefit to the British system too. The real problem is common with both systems: bubble seller market like in London, and month long administrative pr

by gutnor 11y ago

There are benefit to the British system too. The real problem is common with both systems: bubble seller market like in London, and month long administrative procedures for what should be trivial matters in 2015. With the British system (in short, non-legally binding offer, deposit 5 days before getting the keys), you have plenty of time to do survey and make sure everything is correct without risking your deposit. For better (buyer market) or worse (seller market) negotiation is open till the very end when both parties have maximum information. I have seen friends struggling in similar seller market in more "civilised" countries. They had less risk of gazumping, but the risk of betting blind is very real. As for the lease holding, there is no simple "flat ownership" as it is part of a building and that means shared responsibilities on the common and weirdo syndic / condominium / association of owners. I don't mind the British way, but I suspect that is mostly because I have a good landlord but had a flat in a shitty community in Spain.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
> flat in a shitty community in Spain. What happened? I had an apartment abroad for about a decade, paid annually for security for the building and underground garage (this is Africa btw), cleaning and concierge and it was great. I always wondered what'd happen if things went sour in the association of homeowners but at the same time I could hardly conceive issues and never heard of problems from friends, either. A lot of issues of the commons never seemed to pop-up.
- gutnor 11y ago
  Plenty of annoyances - landlord teaming up together, article of associations written by a company that we learned later one of the landlord is director of, ... One instance in particular - we don't have a parking space but we have a cellar at the same level than 1 of the parking floor. Because there is no lock on the door that leads to the parking, the landlords with parking decided that it means we need to pay the charges for the parking and parking elevator (for which we don't have the keys). Obviously they declined the request to put a lock on the door. They can do it because they are the majority and the way the article of association were written. We could contest legally of course, or team up with other landlord to build a majority that would lead to the charges being split between all landlord regardless if they have a parking or not. We are talking about 20 flats here, and frankly we would like to avoid the political drama. Edit: Some info about the UK process. Here after we made the offer (not legally binding in the UK), we had the solicitor review the leasehold contract for such problems. There is always a freeholder that is responsible for crafting the leasehold unlike in Spain when the association of landlord is formed after ( for new build anyway ) and anyway, a side effect of the legally binding offer is that you are psychologically driven to minimise the impact of a solicitor report ( btw, the notary in Spain that deal with property purchase is there a lot more to validate the transaction rather than defending your interests, so they don't really highlight those kind of things as clearly as UK solicitor - of course there are good ones and bad ones YMMV)

by gutnor 11y ago

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

> flat in a shitty community in Spain. What happened? I had an apartment abroad for about a decade, paid annually for security for the building and underground garage (this is Africa btw), cleaning and concierge and it was great. I always wondered what'd happen if things went sour in the association of homeowners but at the same time I could hardly conceive issues and never heard of problems from friends, either. A lot of issues of the commons never seemed to pop-up.

gutnor 11y ago
Plenty of annoyances - landlord teaming up together, article of associations written by a company that we learned later one of the landlord is director of, ... One instance in particular - we don't have a parking space but we have a cellar at the same level than 1 of the parking floor. Because there is no lock on the door that leads to the parking, the landlords with parking decided that it means we need to pay the charges for the parking and parking elevator (for which we don't have the keys). Obviously they declined the request to put a lock on the door. They can do it because they are the majority and the way the article of association were written. We could contest legally of course, or team up with other landlord to build a majority that would lead to the charges being split between all landlord regardless if they have a parking or not. We are talking about 20 flats here, and frankly we would like to avoid the political drama. Edit: Some info about the UK process. Here after we made the offer (not legally binding in the UK), we had the solicitor review the leasehold contract for such problems. There is always a freeholder that is responsible for crafting the leasehold unlike in Spain when the association of landlord is formed after ( for new build anyway ) and anyway, a side effect of the legally binding offer is that you are psychologically driven to minimise the impact of a solicitor report ( btw, the notary in Spain that deal with property purchase is there a lot more to validate the transaction rather than defending your interests, so they don't really highlight those kind of things as clearly as UK solicitor - of course there are good ones and bad ones YMMV)