Elderly targeted

RETIREEs should think carefully before buying a leasehold retirement flat, after the experience of one of my elderly relatives.

‘Retirement’ property isn’t always what buyers imagine. Lured by promises of service and comfort in later years, retirees have bought into these schemes to find service charges are manipulated by unscrupulous management companies, working for equally cut-throat freeholders.

Buyers who try to provide for their future needs can become targets as they become more vulnerable. they get ‘stuck’ with ever-increasing service charges as their leases and services decline, their properties worth a fraction of the original sale price.

some companies have caused great anxiety to homeowners. Many retirees and their families don’t understand the accounting strategies used.

these companies have borrowed millions of pounds using common parts and designated wardens’ flats as collateral, having created leases on them. the result has been a claim by managing agents that resident wardens are outmoded, using legal loopholes and plausible excuses to encourage leaseholders to vote for non-residential management.

once the vote has been secured, the wardens’ flats are sold for profit. Residential management can never again be reinstated.

age UK has raised concerns about the loss of residential managers, but all this is apparently ‘legal’. We need Government regulation to help retired people move without fear of exploitation, making way for families to acquire larger properties.

Name and address supplied.