How UK housing developers scam the public and how we might stop them
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- The hidden scam we all pay for in the end.
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Leasehold will NEVER be banned in the UK. Most of the politicians are also landlords in the UK. Nuff said.
Indeed even the labour ones. Even if they did ban leasehold they'd put in some bs loophole for them to use.
Imo politicans should be legally banned from becoming landlords or from making deals with lobbyists, with heavy sanctions and defrocking if they're caught at it.
Leasehold itself is not the problem it's regulation. In an apparent block it's the most logical way or managing. I have a leasehold but the freehold is a co-op of the leaseholders, that's a good way of managing an estate.
It's been designed this way since some bloke called Bill came over the channel and had a little scrap near Hastings.
@@pendafen7405this will never happen, because it would be the politicians who would have to implement the law 🙃 so much for "democracy".
I live in Victoria, Australia. There is a building inspector called The Tiktok Inspector who goes to inspect homes, sometimes after the building has been signed off by building surveyor. It is sickening how non-compliant these buildings are and what's being signed off. This guy has been threatened and risks physical harm just from exposing how corrupt the building industry is.
most of the places he inspects are truly scary. I was gobsmacked when I first watched his videos.
There’s a Welsh guy on CZcams shorts called new home quality control. Same thing, disgusting really.
He also has a CZcams channel.
The Victorian home inspector has a CZcams channel as site inspections, his latest video was a QLD farmhouse riddled with non compliant issues, house was AUD $950,000 and will require a complete rebuild!
There’s the same thing in AZ USA. New builds are terrible!
Scotland managed to ban leaseholds as far back as 2006. We also don't have water bills. Instead, we pay a fixed sum (not much) on top of our council tax and we can use as much water as we want
Scotland has never had a lease hold/free hold system. We had a feudal system where a land owner would sell land and take a small annual retainer as part of the sale contract. The price you payed never altered and you payed the equivalent amount annually. My first property was £38 per year, taken in monthly instalments by the buildings factor (property management firm). You never required permission to alter layout etc, aslong as work met building regulations and planning you were OK to go. The feudal system was removed by the Scottish government starting in 2000 for single dwellings and was scrapped completely by 2004 for tenements and apartment blocks.
Scotland has plenty of water, I assume. They say water from the tap in London has been through 10 people, at least it tastes like that. Paying for what you use is a perfectly fair system if we are supposed to be saving water. The worst possible system is leasehold flats that have a shared water metre which means you pay for what other people use.
@@user-xu5vl5th9n - I'm starting to realise why my friends down in England, specifically London, think I'm an idiot to want to leave Scotland and move to southern England
There's no such thing as 'lease hold' in Scots domestic property law. The closest we had was feuhold, but in a comparable form to England's leasehold for housing, it was uncommon. It was also earlier than 2006 that feuhold was outlawed in Scotland. Domestic leaseholds haven't existed in Scotland in practice for centuries.
@@user-xu5vl5th9n idk what water u drinking but having lived in multiple places in London, tap water is fine. I prefer it over bottled sometimes.
My parents always used to say: "They don't make things like they used to", and this is absolutely true of almost everything nowadays, but houses and cars in particular.
Does that factor in selection bias? Put another way, ancient Roman buildings were mostly built extremely badly, but the few which were built from stone and concrete still stand today, so people assume ancient Roman buildings must all have been good because the ones we have today are all well made
Car are actually better now and last longer….
@@kd3446 They might be objectively better, but they are certainly not designed to last.
In the UK, a 2023 model low - mid range car are vastly superior to an equivalent 1970 car.
@@nickrails Maybe, but vastly more expensive with a vastly shorter lifespan.
Hit the nail on it with the Help to Buy scheme. Making it only available for new builds is an obvious ploy to just hand developers money, otherwise it makes absolutely no sense.
They did extend it to any house iirc, i bought my house with help to buy in 2016 which really helped us. But I did make sure that our builders were decent (my Dad worked in the social housing industry, buy to let/shared ownership schemes) though
It would encourage building new houses, which is what we need, looking at the big picture.
It could well be there's supposed to be financial security aspect, who'd be liable if you bought a basket case in a private sale, but they often don't.
I got £10k of insulation through a gov't scheme - came with 20yrs insurance....
The underwriters were registered in Gibraltar and wound up the company weeks after the scheme closed.
Any “free money” scheme just drives up prices. They need to add downward pressure on the market, require faster amortisation, remove obstacles for construction (max time wasted in planning for permits, disallow neighbours from having opinions)
Naw we need more regulation to stop cow boy builders and greedy developers producing trash for max profit@@rikardottosson1272
You brought it up at the end, but the London housing bubble is pushing working class people out of the area, to the detriment of everyone. I grew up in Hertfordshire, me and my family have outgrown our 2 bed flat, so we want to buy a house. We literally can not afford to move around here. We're moving 2 hours up the road in Lincolnshire, buying a 3 bed semi for less than we're selling the flat. A 1950s ex-council house no less, wouldn't touch a new build. Developers and corruption are destroying this country. No one will be able to afford to live here if it carries on. We need actual social housing not built for profit. We need the tories out.
London isn't a housing bubble, bubbles are things that pop, even if inward migration stopped today it'd be decades before you saw that follow through into stemming the housing market. That doesn't sound like a bubble to me. Also not financial advice.
Social housing with open borders illegal & legal pointless will just create more immigration…
Yes the Tories are corrupt but Labour are also corrupt.
I understand your frustration but this problem is not specific to the conservative party.
Mass migration will still continue under a labour party which will cause massive strain on the housing market.
Your problems will continue on under any mainstream party.
I live in mid Lincolnshire. Housing here is cheap for a reason....low wages, poor road network/ train services, lack of investment in town centres, dreary seaside resorts...stay away it's a trap, move here and you have burnt your bridges.
It will never not be wild to me that the most expensive purchase we will ever make in our lives is one where we're expected to make decisions based on vague, partial information, and receive very little in the way of guarantees of the quality of what we are purchasing. The fact that there is so little accountability in the housing industry and it's deemed the buyers fault for not doing their due diligence if they end up with a lemon is utterly ridiculous.
I'm from Victoria, British Columbia and every time there's a new build apartment building, it's dedicated to AirBNB (mostly murphy beds) and it is infuriating. Recently a bill was passed to crack down on short term rentals and all the bnb owners are crying about their 'wasted' investment. I hope it's wasted, get a real job that isn't stealing housing from others
What do you mean? Is there a limited amount of property permitted to be built? How does their investment ruin it for other people? U mad that tourists can spend money?
@@snorttroll4379You must be one of the people that rents out such apartments. Tourists have hotels, people that actively live in said country cant afford a hotel stay every night.
I get where you're coming from, but that ain't stealing. It's buying.
And of course they're gonna complain when new regulations reduce the value of their investments.
Maybe they should do what other industries do and brib- ,I mean, lobby politicians to make laws that benefit them.
More good news on the BC housing front: the government is getting into building affordable rentals itself because it’s clear that the private market won’t solve the issue. I really hope this changes things for the province.
That's a thing in tourist spots...
I'm outside of Edinburgh and renting a long term property is a miracle, everything is an Airbnb.
you are bordering on investigatice journalism and i am here for it, if you can do a slight more work on sourcing your information with good references I would absolutely be sharing videos
Evan slowly becoming the opposite of John Oliver. Instead of a British man revealing the truth about American politics, he’s an American man revealing the truth about British politics.
He's doing a good job but come on, he's nowhere near a proper investigative journalist not John Oliver (or more accurately the research staffers employed on the show).
@@dealbreakercjohn Oliver has a whole team of people investigating and writing for him,surely?
Dude, he's not an investigative journalist. The investigation had already been conducted by journalists.
A lot of you seem to have misunderstood what encouraging other people looks like.
I'm encouraging Evan, because I'm very literate with UK law and politics, and it's nice to see he is starting to be a bit more informative. So I'm encouraging him.
We cannot rely on news corporations. But small time journalists who work directly for their audience ? There's something there
My American friends didn’t understand when I told them I was looking for a flat that was 100 years old, tenement flats (Glasgow) are so much better in terms of build quality than new builds. And thankfully leaseholds are not a thing up here - it’s part of the reason I decided not to work in England to be honest.
Aye that's a very English scam
The ones that are still standing are, but there was a lot of rubbish built in that era that has long since gone. The Gorbals for example has been demolished and rebuilt twice since then.
Exactly. Look what Hurricane Low Q did to Glasgow tenements. Walls blown off. Chimneys blown down.
@colinmacdonald5732 at least it took a hurricane some of this crap falls over if you lean on it.
@@nicka3697 Not strictly speaking a hurricane though. I'll grant you that Scottish building standards are higher (fact, not opinion) but we do have higher wind speeds.
I own a small construction company in rural England, we have periodic checks by building control which are very strict and demand things to be quite over engineered, we've used both London based private companies and local council building control. In my opinion they aren't as knowledgeable as you'd hope but they know the specifications and they err on the side of caution. God knows who's palms are getting greased to sign off these hell holes, corruption really seems to be becoming apparent in the city's of the UK, heads need to roll.
Yes, please see my comment above.
Something I don't think was mentioned is leasehold of ex-council flats. They literally charge £20,000+ to paint a two floor corridor to leaseholders. They essentially have excess money to spend, so pay their friends SO much more than is standard and the leaseholders get sent a ridiculous bill. Great video
You are exactly right, the costs are ridiculous, yes you may get a cheaper purchase price but you will pay later as my mother found out.
Hey, I'm currently a student in Cardiff - the luxury student accomodations are really crazy to me. Theyre generally £200+ per week. Keep in mind that I have the max student loan and I can only really afford a room thats about 100-150 a week. Most students get farrrr less than me and have to work to afford a flat in that range. I cannot understand who can possibly afford these luxury accomodations! Literally no one!
I was in Birmingham for a year and the cheapest flat was £190 a week with the most being £260. Genuinely wonder if any of us living in there wasn’t getting help from parents or other family because that’s truly not liveable
International students most likely :(
These luxury student accommodations like the name suggest are luxury above the typical average accommodation hence its price above the typical market rate but that's not the main problem of current housing market prices is the scam of current housing development like the video suggests to get decent living accommodation that's not full of mold with health issues and hazards renters will need to pay the luxury prices just to avoid these problems while the bad poor to average market accommodations always try to fleece their ways with scam quality to charge premiums of luxury accommodation prices where regulations is failing either with incompetence or deliberate by not catching up to scammers
If you're ever gonna get new accommodation or even houses you have to personally buy several sensors from humidity, air, temperature, mold, radiation and laser several others which I don't even know off then check the build quality of home itself like an real estate agents
Lets not even get into the issues of nasty social politics with corruption, conflict of interests and loopholes schemes that's entirely different issue
Cardiff - we paid for my autistic son to live in these student flats near his Uni. Mostly Chinese and Asian neighbours who could afford it. Are they well built? No. The windows leaked, the doors stuck, and there was rarely anyone at reception. He came home to study before his exams to find that they had cleared his room in his absence ready for summer lettings, contacting him to say his passport was at reception - clothes, food, cleaning materials, toiletries all 'gone'.
@@janethayes1728to counter this I was at uni around 2019 at Cardiff and while the abundance of Asian students is accurate my experience was great.
ive worked in construction since I was 16/17 as a painter and decorator (im 25 now), and the amount of lies the public get told about the cost to build a house is beyond a scandal.
ive spoken to many different smaller dev's and other trades and on a very rough working out. the raw cost of building the avg 2 bed house, materials, land, labour, taxes ext.... ranges from as low as 60k - 150k depending on the quality of meterails. Tiles, paint, brick, lumber ect.. are just a few examples of how meterials can change the price so much.
but the most intresting thing I learnt is when I spoke to an "affordable homes" develaper and he told me on a large develpoment or 1, 2 and 3 bed smaller starter homes. all in the avg cost of them homes raw cost was around 50k eatch. but would sell for over 250k in that particular area (bad location still high price)
the mark up on prices compared to what they cost is just stupid. homes should sell for what they cost, maybe a small profit margin on top for the dev to build more. 100k-150k should be the price. thats 60k-125k to build with a bit of profit ontop. and 1 beds should not cost anymore then around 80-120k since they cost even less to build. around 50-100k
The cost to build to a reasonable spec now is £160 per sq ft. Then you have cost of the land, Section 106 and CIL payments. It's way more than you state. I cost out sites for developers.
Also if I may add, when you are going through planning, the planning committee also value the land, cost of construction and allow a "reasonable" profit of 20-25%. Once you go over that they pretty much drain you in S106 and CIL payments as well as their affordable housing quota.
@user-gz6tx6yp3v sadly your people are lying to you. You really don't understand how many of the trades are adding stupid amounts on top to "protect there losses" when in reality they just use that as an ecsuse to work slower and still earn a lot more. Just one project I worked on was a 2 bed house and the painting costs alone could have been 5k cheaper if the other guys painting just worked properly. I'm talking 6 or 7 hour days with 3 tea breaks and adding absurd extras to the cost of materials even though it didn't really cost as much. 5k extra per trade could be as much as 25k+ saved just from lazy workers trying to basicly steel
@@TheKnexMaker I could spend time explaining to you why you are wrong, or how I've spent 10 years costing out developments for some well known firms. I have very good relationships with many contractors including Tier 1 for larger schemes. I know how much things cost from different types of piling rigs to cement, masonry and steel works to all types of grade, down to underlay and paint. So while I appreciate you may know a bit about decorating and you've heard a few story's, that's all they are. It's £160 per foot to build a decent spec house and from £219 to build a 5 story mid spec covering site welfare and everything else that goes with it. Towers that require a Tier 1 you're looking at £259 per sq ft. I can continue pouring over a decade of site cost evaluation into the comment section if you like, but I think you get the idea.
@user-gz6tx6yp3v you just proved my point, you said £160 per square foot for the low end. And the avg house size in the uk is 818 sq ft. That works out to. £130,880. The avg size is around 2 bed house.
So when you talk about 1-2 bed small homes it should be around 100k or less.
@@TheKnexMaker That £160 per sq ft doesn't include finance costs, architect and planning consultancy fees, S106 and CIL payments. When you add all that in you are getting to £210 per sq ft minimum then on top of that you have the purchase cost of the land as well.
And we haven't even got to marketing costs and buyer incentives or risk factor to market activity resulting in higher development funding costs.
When we approach the planning process the maximum profit margins get capped at 25% best case as the S106/CIL strips out a lot of the profit if the council can prove it. So the more profit you try to make they just take it in affordable housing, first time buyer discounted homes often by 30% from RICS and then you have the CIL cash payment, or you simply won't get planning.
Also, at the moment lenders are reducing their LTC, so more developers are requiring private equity to cover the shortfall often resulting in a third to as much as half of their profit paid out to investors to get the project off the ground.
There's so much information I'm sharing with you here, in a very broad layman's manner, but surely you can realise it's not as simple as from the perspective of a trade?
No disrespect, I have a lot of respect for trades but my role is hugely technical and covers financials and planning, not just site evaluation.
My friends bought a small new-build flat in 2023, which cost them a fortune, plus they have large property management fees which defeats the purpose of buying a property in the first place . While the windows are nice, the plumbing looks amateurish, and the doors and walls are very thin. The noise pollution is incredible. Their downstairs neighbours complain they can hear them walking around, so they have to tiptoe all the time to avoid disturbing them. You can even hear the downstairs neighbours chatting,
I would rather live in a car, at least I could park it somewhere quiet
I rent a new apartment in Oslo, Norway. Brand new building. They constructed the ventilation in a way that transports ALL of the noise from the hallway. I can hear the elevator start, go. And stop, EVERYTIME someone takes it, despite me living on the 8th floor. I can also hear people closing the doors / opening them, and sometimes, quite often actually, if one of my neighboors slams the door (by accident or not) my WHOLE APARTMENT SHAKES. including the concrete walls, and floor.
@@Asoftenkamesheeuh, if it shakes that bad, you may want to find another place, before a mudslide does you in 😮
@@unturned6066 I'm not sure if there is mud underneath the building, but it certainly hadn't been build to code. 👀 Even my neighboor who is in the construction business, said so 🥲
@@Asoftenkameshee even if the ground is firm, if you live anywhere near the mountains, the winter mudslides can apparently travel really far.
@@unturned6066 that's a fair point 👀 Indo have mountains close to me.
We have the same problem in Australia. Governments all over the western world have dropped the ball with inspection/regulation of builders and appropriately holding them to account. As soon as buildings start falling apart, the builder declares bankruptcy and cant be penalised. Then the principals just start another company ...
It’s not “all over the western world”. Perhaps the English speaking one?
We have these problems in finland as well, big part of problem seems to be giving contracts to the lowest bidder
I love the UK with all my heart but the one thing that is wrong with that country is the obsession with property. A prime example of that is the "property ladder": you buy a property, live in it and sell it for a profit so you can get the next-best thing. Over there, a house is not a home, it's an investment. The entire economy is built on that and the government bends over backwards to stop the market from correcting itself and property prices from going down.
But this model is unsustainable. When I lived there ten years ago, I thought, it's all gonna end in tears 😢. And it looks like I was right.
yup... the UK economy just runs on the basis of housing. Housing shortage just feels like a deliberate measure to make sure that the sector is profitable.
Same in Australia. Same in a lot of countries. If these countries stop importing people from elsewhere they will collapse
@@jungleboy1it’s like Dutch disease, eating up capital that could’ve been used for more truly productive sectors that would boost the prestige of the nation, just because it’s less risky than actual innovation.
You are wrong. Owning property isn't the problem, British people have owned property for hundreds of years and it's worked fine. It's only in the last 20-30 years that it's become a problem.
like so many of the problems of the UK, the start of the problem can be traced back to 1979, where the lies of neolibralism were first introduced and then sold to the masses by the very small percentage that were going to benefit the most@@LawrenceTimme
New builds are made of shit and seriously look like shit in this country, i refuse to even think about buying one
It's an interesting reversal of most countries, where if you want a good-quality, reliable, well-built house you look for a modern one. In the UK, if we want a well-built house we can trust, we try and find a Victorian one!
cut and pasted across the country. You could go from one side of England to the other and see the same type of property or estate.... They'd make them of paper if they could get someone to sign on the dotted line before it fell over.
@@jungleboy1You make your own rules be happy
It's like that here in Iceland too - most new builds seem to be ordered from the same LEGO catalogue, all flat-roofed boxes (in Iceland, a place where it snows a lot sometimes and rains a lot always) with the cheapest interiors you can imagine - can't even be bothered to put up dividing walls, dedicated kitchens are a thing of the past because buyers "want" a single open space with a tiny IKEA kitchenette in the corner.
@@tinnagigja3723 Builders build what buyers want
6 years ago we bought a 350 year old timber framed house, going into it knowing there was going to be some considerable repair to do.
Roughly 50% of the walls had been plastered over with pink plaster, and the front outside had the lime removed and been cement rendered. All the oak in those walls was gone, literally old 8"x8" beams which were just piles of soil so over a year we ended up gradually replacing all the framing in all the walls which had that treatment.
The walls which were original still plastered in lime with the sticks & poo filler, were in great condition. It all got stripped to add some much better but still breathable insulation, and seeing the naked beams, 350 year old oak, it was amazing just how well that area had aged with no structural work needed at all. Still solid, looking no more than 50 years old. The modern non porous materials wrecked the areas they were applied.
Lime over timber or lime over brick houses do so well in the UK because our wet climate means buildings need to be able to breathe and dry, and timber frames allow for the ground movement that comes with lots of wet and dry periods. I know several people with newer or new houses with concrete foundations which have had cracking issues including floors breaking pipes. Our climate really isn't suited to these newer building practises and companies building the houses don't do enough mitigations to avoid these issues. As long as it mostly lasts the warranty I guess..
Thank you for talking about this. I bought my new build flat in Bristol in Dec '22 and it has become a living nightmare for me. Almost instantly as soon as I moved in I started having leaks - through the walls, ceiling and even lights. The work has still not begun over a year later and I am in a constant battle to try and get it sorted. It has destroyed so much of my life and I feel stuck as I can't get out of it. I think the builders were painting over the leaks and were negligent of the fact that it was happening whilst building.
All I want, and have ever wanted, was a safe and comfortable home to live in. I am a first time buyer and have lived in flatshares since I was 18 to try to afford to get onto the property ladder.
🙏
So sorry.....my flat was not good either....till I bought a house.....took 30 years to get there
Late 90s, when I was still a kid living with my parents, my parents where trying to buy a new place. They said to me to "never buy leasehold, never buy new" - so never did. When I looked into "help to buy and shared ownership" when buying my first place, they were obvious scams. When you buy a place you need to own the house, the land, entirely and just have the bank to deal with. I remember when you were buying and I was screaming at the screen, think I even left a comment once.
while I agree that if possible you should never buy anything but freehold, sometimes there is no alternative. In practice it's the same as Allodial title (no superior landlord), though tecnically it isn't, You can't buy Allodial title in England and wales(all land is held by the crown, even that held in freehold, which is similar to the position to the federal Government in the USA), but you can buy Allodial in Scotland, though the term isn't recognised or used. Only Orkney and Shetland in the UK have Allodial tenure and I think all property in France is usually Allodial title.
Your parents were smart.
You could make the Help To Buy work if you are smart by selling or remortgaging…. I just could see that Shared Ownership is a a never ending sh*t show!
I work in it for schools it's not just houses that are being screwed up. For example we were scheduled for April to go into a new build school to install servers WiFi ect. But they have postponed our work cause they have had to KNOCK THE SCHOOL DOWN AND REBUILD IT because they built the windows and door holes the wrong size.
good heavens, the level of incompetence. Moreso this happening in the 2020s! Our grandparents built way better quality infrastructure than us
At the turn of the century *shivers* I was working in schools doing IT. The new builds (built under the PFI scheme) were appalling, I remember a primary school where, when it rained, it was so loud my colleague and I had to shout over the drumming of the roof, we were only a couple of meters apart.
Another one, the glass wall at the entrance suddenly came apart, huge panes of glass falling in towards the pupils next to it.
Bits falling off the walls was a common occurrence.
Electrical faults, sanitation, undrinkable water. Yep, you could tell these were scams. Oddly enough a lot of the councillors involved in getting these things built turned out to have connections with the companies.
EDIT: Typos.
Same - I work in various different schools around London. Noticed similar issues.
Swedish viewer here, loving the content and very relevant even outside the UK!
Regarding the penalties leveraged against companies like these developers I have a lot of, fairly strong, thoughts however. Fining the companies, even huge fines, are wholly insufficient as if, by some miracle, the company is actually held liable they'll just make sure to have a fall company with no assets take the blame and declare bankruptcy and move on under another name.
For smaller sums, or the rare large one, the fines is just the cost of doing business and either extracted from the customers directly or by providing even shittier services.
What needs to happen is that we stop treating companies as people, as that's just shifting the blame onto the imaginary friends of the actual culprits, and censor the people who bears responsibility.
Huge fines, yes - but send them to the owners. Split it according to number of shares for publicly traded companies, or by ownership split for other forms.
The CEO and board needs to face criminal liability, meaning being barred from running companies and prison time.
The scale of suffering inflicted with schemes like these is of such a magnitude that we can't allow people to weasel their way out of liability with the scapegoat of corporate structures.
I moved from the London area to Wales due to the cost of living there. I'm so glad I did! Bought a nice house for under £100k and have a far better quality of life.
If only more people refused to pay the crazy London prices, then maybe demand will drop along with prices.
Hard to refuse to pay for something you need to live. Is there enough work in Wales to support even 10% of Londoners moving in?
Same, I moved back to Wales (the place I was born and that my grandfather emigrated from, interestingly) because it's the only long shot I have as a low-middle income person without rich parents of ever affording to live and stay in the U.K.. And even here, it's a struggle. Unless I get inheritance in 20 years, I may well be forced to leave the island altogether, which is never something I as a native planned for or wanted or imagined could happen outside of another World War. Hopefully all the Tories and UMC pensioners don't have the same idea and come down here, as neither the locals nor the young migrants like me want them around, plus there isn't space or jobs enough as it is. Gwent alone already has too many rahs & Olds who don't contribute and are trying to gentrify/anglicise (fwiw I'm learning Cymraeg and local lore).
The only thing that will bring houses prices down is building more houses, which the govt refuses to do because it makes their friends sickeningly rich
@@TwelvetreeZ it's a mixture of things that breaks all political will to stop it.
-Wealthy & powerful people own lots of real estate & constantly accrue sickening amounts of money for doing no work. Inflated property prices pushes more people to be tenants rather than owners, putting money into the pockets of the wealthy forever. And inflated value means they can use it to finance more asset acquisitions at rock bottom interest rates compared to us mere mortals.
-inflated prices means inflated mortgages, which means negative equity for most people still occupying a structure functionally still owned by the bank. So unless there's a political solution then they'll be unable to move & trapped by debt.
-many people who live in a property paid outright imagine they are getting wealthier, even though they own no surplus real estate, their house is still only worth one house. So unless they plan on a significant downsizing or moving somewhere with cheaper housing (fewer options than ever), their realised gains won't translate to much of a change in their living situation.
So yeah, there's a few reasons why there's a total lock against any political will to change this.
@@TwelvetreeZ it's a mixture of things that breaks all political will to stop it.
-Wealthy & powerful people own lots of real estate & constantly accrue sickening amounts of money for doing no work. Inflated property prices pushes more people to be tenants rather than owners, putting money into the pockets of the wealthy forever. And inflated value means they can use it to finance more asset acquisitions at rock bottom interest rates compared to us mere mortals.
-inflated prices means inflated mortgages, which means negative equity for most people still occupying a structure functionally still owned by the bank. So unless there's a political solution then they'll be unable to move & trapped by debt.
-many people who live in a property paid outright imagine they are getting wealthier, even though they own no surplus real estate, their house is still only worth one house. So unless they plan on a significant downsizing or moving somewhere with cheaper housing (fewer options than ever), their realised gains won't translate to much of a change in their living situation.
So yeah, there's a few reasons why there's a total lock against any political will to change this.
I would never consider buying a home in the UK built after the 1960's- that when standards really starts to slide.
It was Margaret Thatcher from 1979 onwards that made following building regulations the responsibility of the developers rather than local councils, and it's been downhill all the way from there.
That’s a bit generalised. There are decent new houses, they are just not built by any of the large building firms.
It's ridiculous that people are so concerned about profit that they build barely livable structures. Humanity at its finest.
It's not a surprise.
For same reason companies don't want to build durable consumer goods. You run out of customers and your ability to increase profits every year, as market is saturated.
That's the downside of capitalism. All just seek for ways to provide minimum amount of service for maximum price.
Humanity at it's end more like
Profit has always been driven by profit. Except 100 years ago when they built great houses, the profit came from abusing workers (workers' rights? slaves who built half of london? minimum wage: nope!), not from lowering the quality of the output.
I was a civil engineer on a series of development and housing projects in London in the 1980s. Not all of them were justified - because they were knocking down well built Victorian buildings - but they were all well built, the bricks were sound, the timber was sound, the designs were sound, light and fresh air was good etc. I have watched those standards decline steadily over the years but they took an absolute nosedive after the "Affordable Homes Initiative. We are building SLUMS, we are putting people in kennels not fit for dogs. The only good news is, as you say, most of them will collapse within a decade or two.
Our whole local area that was once wildlife and farming is now a ✨lovely✨ building site of multiple housing developments. In the last 5 years we've gained about 10 sites. Most sit empty as even the affordable ones arent. And they have plans to build another one thats like 200+ houses. We haven't got enough schools, doctors, dentists or activities for youth in the area as it is.
My daughters dad is in a new build and within 2years he's had issues with pipes, his front door not opening. Honestly they may look new and modern but they are the shein of the housing market.
This video feels kind of Tom Scott inspired while still feeling original and fresh and maintaining that signature Evan style.
I am normally a silent viewer but I just wanted to comment to say how interesting I found this video as a Canadian with no stake in the London property game. Well done!
Tom Scott is so afraid of conflict and hurting people's (and businesses'!) feelings that he could never make a video even close to this.
@@mytube001 I just meant in the way that it’s filmed. The setting changes, especially when he’s just walking outside made me immediately think of Tom Scott. The subject matter itself is 100% Evan!
Also just editing to say that my comments are not meant to insinuate that Evan is copying anyone else by any means!! I’ve just seen him mention Tom Scott before and I like that this video feels a bit like an homage to someone whose content he respects while also feeling totally original and so interesting.
I was thinking more like NY’s Cash Jordan (who’s excellent). As a Canadian hoping to relocate to the UK, I’m living for this type of content ❤ It would be amazing to see Evan and Cash do a collaboration comparing the UK to the US.
@@TheEnthusiasticHoboI’ve been doing this style for quite a while but they’re rare as they take me so long to make! There’s a playlist on my channel called “Big Research Videos” which feature lots of different shots and sketches and things. :) thanks!
Just for comparison, one of my friends owns a house built in 1535 granted he had to invest about 500 kEuro to modernize it but you can be sure it will last at least the next 150 to 200 years.
Like the house I grew up in😊 an old coaching inn. Scared my cousins with the 'settling' timbers that we were so used to.🫶😊😊
@@ac1646 yeah old houses develop their own soul as the time that passes by.
Houses were built of cowshit and wood in the UK in 1535 and for several centuries after that.
@@simonh6371 well it is what is called a half-timbered house made of a wooden frame structure and the area between the wood en beams was filled with clay. I don't know if they also used some cow dung together with the clay but even if after the 5 centuries it didn't stink at all and everything is hard as rock. The funny thing is that during the renovation and restructure process we had to replace one of the major beams. In order to guarantee the governmental subsidies he had to use an old beam that came from an other house that was taken down from the same time. This beam was about one meter longer than the original one and we had to cut it. This 500 years old oak wood was hard like metal we destroyed several chains of the chain saw in this process.
It’s not just leasehold. You have to be careful with new build freeholds as well. These companies are ruthless!
The irony is the government actually forgot to put a clause in the bill to even ban leasehold houses!!
Im a joiner in the UK, and i would never let any of my friends or family buy a new build.. i saw 1st hand the type of tradesmen that end up working on them while i was at college. And it aint good 😅
SAME. (I'm not a joiner! But we are doing a self build. Doing a lot of the internal walls and external concrete with our bare hands. I'm pleased with the results and there's no way I'd let others near any concrete work at our place, unless I really trusted them.)
Thankyou for advice
Eeeek. Good grief, London prices are insane. For a flat? that collapses in 4 years?? That is genuinely life ruining, those poor residents..
Poor residents? It was their own fault for not doing their due diligence. Bunch of mugs the lot of 'em.
@bobjames6622
Dumb comment. You didn't understand most of this video, did you?
@@bobjames6622 we had all the required surveys and followed an independent conveyancing process.
@@bobjames6622 They were scammed. They are not the ones who neglected their responsibility to build a safe structure stfu
@@AlexParkYT Only the stupid, who cannot be bothered to do their own due diligence, get scammed. When you are parting with HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of pounds it is up to that person to ensure BEYOND any DOUBT that they are doing business with reputable people/companies.
They failed to do that. So they got stung. That's how life, in the REAL WORLD, works.
I don’t understand why developers are allowed to change the type of accommodation after the fact. If you agree to build student accommodation and build luxury apartments instead, surely you should be forced to lease them as originally decided at the original price? This country is such a joke.
Totally correct. Our old terraced house is over 100 years old but just keeps improving when we have been able to make improvements over the years. I've seen some of these new matchbox being built. They are horrible.
I think we are having some similar issues here in Canada. One of my coworkers recently had a conditional offer on a house that he ended up withdrawing because, despite the house being a year old, it was having so many issues from being poorly built (bad roof, leaking, mold) and the seller/developer/builder wouldn't fix them to secure the sale. It does make me wonder what the point of having building codes and home inspectors are when these things seem to happen so frequently.
Avg House in Toronto being like 1 million CAD. 2nd largest country 🎉
I was thinking of the development that was endorsed by Mike Holmes, and now there are a few that had to be bulldozed, they were in such horrendous condition.
Same here in UK.....10 year warranties not worth the paper they're written on.
@@mocat1Sometimes techniques appear to work well at first and then turn out to really flop when subjected to the test of time.
My husband and I are building a chicken run. I'm hoping it lasts 15-20 years, probably longer with maintenance. We are amateurs. Obviously, we are better builders than professionals 😅
Is the chicken run for you or the chickens? Either way I'm sure they'll be happy in their "forever home" 😅😅
@mypointofview1111 lol that's relative, isn't it.
In New Zealand, they built "leaky homes" (look it up on Wikipedia) from the early '90s to the early 2010s. Unsaleable & unsafe to live in. Plus owners bear most of remediation cost.
Shipping containers make terrible homes. There is almost nothing that makes them a good basis for a residence.
It suits our dystopian timeline that people are being made to live in those.
Agree it’s totally unacceptable!! We bought a new build worst mistake in our lives, glad you’ve brought this topic up!! Great video quality btw
Don't people have surveys done before they buy?
@@terryclarke9488 Many don't, and even of those who do many don't then bother to read the survey. Mugs.
We had a survey done but it didn’t show anything to be concerned with it was only after 3 years things started to appear that were going to be big problems going forwards
@@terryclarke9488 most surveyors are massively under qualified. None can deal with anything more complex than a wonky kitchen cabinet. Signed an architectural assistant that specialises in historic buildings spending a lot of time contering the ludicrous claims of surveyors. Some can't even measure properly. We get drawings all the time from surveyors that can't even use a tape measure. Let alone do anything as complicated as understanding building fabric breathability and building pathology. Way beyond 90 percent of their knowledge.
Well done and in depth video on real estate. I'd look into legal consequences for the developers, or the need for additional criminal code for building scams.
Fantastic video Evan! I'm an architect and a lot of what my company does is housing developments. When i was looking for a house to buy I was recognising house types on developments 20+ years old. The houses being built now are identical and I find that super depressing! So we went for a 100 year old how and although it has it's quirks, at least we can fit a bed in the bedroom and still have space for a wardrobe!
I have watched some new builds over the last 10 years. Architects produce new cheap building systems. Using the minimum amount of cheap materials. Then they use the cheapest unskilled labour to build them. Who skip all the parts of the new building system that slow them down, but won't be noticed once the plaster goes up. Then things like brick skin of schools peeling off, because they left out most of the brick ties. Or the roof of your new luxury executive house leaks because they left out some of the new roofing system parts.
100%. There are some pretty shocking videos here on YT showing whole external walls built on the piss etc
A friend at work bought a new build detached house. Along with all the snags, the interest rates on such a high priced house has also caused him to sell because he can no longer afford it
As an indian who came to UK 15 years ago I am still in disbelief not about 'leasehold' but as to why people still buy them!
You are right to be thinking that way, however if you tried buying a house where the freehold was being offered, you'd understand why people lower their standards and buy a leasehold!
@@MatSmithLondon yes and that is why the government in taking total advantage and scamming people to make sure they are always a slave.
@@MatSmithLondon yeah agree with you mate. These schemes are tricking and sucking money out of ordinary citizens who just need a roof over their head.
Yes, yes yes about time someone talked about this. I'm an architecture student, the untold story by my tutors (who are architects) is that developers screw architects over big time, especially those in smaller practices, with watered down versions.
There was a post on reddit couple of weeks back. One developer increased their service charge from 4k per year to over 300k with most of charges blacked out. Not even their lawyers were able to see what those charges were.
Great video sir. Dare I say that you are putting most "journalists" to shame. Keep up the good work!
I mean thanks but for the most part I rely on actual journalists uncovering this stuff but I present
Follow up recommendation: "Fleecehold".
Where the freeholder owns the property, but the developer sells the road/parks/streetlights/etc on to a private management company, who write in a mandatory charge to the title deeds for the freeholders to cover the roads, the grass cutting, the streetlights, the Companies admin...
To me it looks like a loophole to allow for the "Leasehold" charges and issues you mention here to carry on after legislation bans then.
See the HorNet/Homeowners Rights campaign.
I agree. I stay away from anything that has these charges and they are in addition to council tax - win, win for both the council and these management companies - lose for the homeowner.
@@gulzebkhan2621there's loads of these types of setups with new build estates in my city... its a scam, legalised theft. We are ruled by criminal's, their laws benefit criminals.
To add to the poor building standards, in East Anglia almost every development is granted permission on the strength of "affordable" housing being included. The instant the developers get the permission, they claim that the affordable stuff is not economically viable (i.e. cuts into their huge margins) and usually manage to get some, or all taken out. Councils either collude, or cannot afford the legal stuff to challenge these things. The obvious solution is to make any undertaking made by the developer mandatory. Should improve developer budgeting and spreadsheet "what if" skills as well!
'Sustainable Housing' = Codeword for 'Disposable Expensive House of Multiple Occupancy'
What is also quite sickening is that alot of these 'developers' are probably knocking down the places that were unfit to begin with when the first brick was laid on insurance write-offs, whilst exorbitantly charging renters much much more than required.
Yep you are right. I really dislike this doublespeak. I shiver when I hear "sustainable housing" now as it's usually uttered by our local councillors who seem to be highly supportive of developers coming and doing their thing.
Profits can be hidden with a good accountant. The fine should be total cost to make good, even if that means rebuilding the complex, or paying off the occupants enough to buy equiv (better built) property elsewhere.
The houses the developers build where I live are 4 bedroom detached houses with very little land for over £1.5 million. They look like houses built on a film set. A 2x 2 wooden frame with fibreglass between them with plasterboard and a brick shell. They seem to arrive as a flat pack kit from somewhere.
I watched the same flat-packed template being used here but what really caught my eye was the brick shell being replaced by what looked like brick tiles. I walked closer to inspect the stack and saw that the brick blocks had literally been sliced like a loaf of bread! Started laughing as they were really quick with the pointing. In London zone 2, small twelve-unit development of 1/2 bed flats (3storey). Utterly depressing, made to fail.
I imagine the timber garden shed I built will last longer than some of these new builds, at just over 17 square meter, it's probably going to be bigger than some proposed dwellings the way development is going.
UK property developers looked at EA games and thought "what if we could release incomplete products too 🤔"
As a student in Cardiff you managed to explain so much of my issues getting a good flat.
yhh its so annoying and hard i feel u
yep, the search for flats is a sparking nightmare.
I agree with most of what was said in this rant but I wondered why Labour were given a free pass since these building projects were in their jurisdiction 🤔
I agree, and it's far too easy to reach for "our politicians" as the culprits. (a) we voted for them. (b) it was the last lot anyway. I do wish the tories would commit to some kind of radical solution though. Or Labour, I don't care. I'd vote for it. Sad thing is, neither party will implement a radical solution.
I work in the Historic Preservation/Architecture History field in the U.S., and while our field started out in the 60s mostly to save old fancy neoclassical buildings (and protect people's land values, depending who you ask), we now have a common motto that "The greenest building is the one that is already built." That is to say, that the best way to allocate resources to benefit the environment, as well as our financial stability, is to build things to last indefinitely and maintain them in perpetuity. Back when the world seemingly moved a lot slower, it was very normal for houses to be handed down through generations as a long-term asset, even for multiple centuries. Most buildings in the past ("past" i.e. before the World Wars) were built for the long term. There's a common narrative that old buildings just seem to be better than new ones due to a "survivorship bias," but this doesn't hold much weight. Consider that much of the really egregiously crappy building materials we have now (especially in the U.S.) like paperboard sheathing and vinyl plastic siding, flooring, and windows simply didn't exist back then, and even temporary and utilitarian buildings in the past were made with materials that would be considered premium in today's market, such as old-growth lumber and lime plaster.
Then there's Japan where it's normal to demolish houses after only 30-40 years of use. Of course they have a very real earthquake and tsunami concern with houses built before certain regulations were enacted, but I would like to see this approach change now that their construction standards are, at least safety-wise, so much better now. Of course Japan has much bigger economic and population concerns right now, but maybe having more long-term generational assets would help? Idk, I'm an architecture historian, not an economist
I'm a decorator and most of my jobs are in houses which are at least 100 years old.
I refuse to work in any house less than 30 years old because they're made with sticky back plastic and paper, so as soon as you try to prepare anything it collapses in on itelf.
The new houses they sell nowadays WILL NOT last as long as the mortgage.
I find it incredible that you have more consumer protection when you buy a television rather than a property. Good old caveat emptor!
I hppe that you're feeling better now.
I've said it before and I will say it again, it's because of lots of people trying to squeeze into a few cities because that's where all the high paying, professional jobs are located.
Though there is a big housing shortage, this is made a lot worse by the fact that most of the UK's economy in concentrated in just a small number of cities which creates property hotspots in those areas. This has had such an affect that in many cases you are actually financially better off living in an area with lower wages but vastly lower property prices.
A good example of this is my own hometown. It's rather isolated, has poor public transport so basically, if you live here, you work here. It can't be used as a commuter town to one of our cities. The local jobs are mainly none professional, manual, minimum wage jobs on production lines do a wage of £25k per year living in the town is a decent wage.
Now some person working in London might read this and think "How can anyone live on £25k per year?". That's because you are searching for flats in London at £900,000. If you live in my town you can easily buy a terraced house today for less than £100k and a semi detached house for £130k. There's houses sat empty waiting for a buyer.
I myself bought my own fixer upper as both a first time buyer and as single man at the time. The house was sound structurally. It just needed new windows and doors and then redecorating throughout. It's a 1800 sq ft 3 bed semi and granted, I bought it some 11 years ago now, at the time it cost me £70k. It's now roughly worth double that value based on local property prices.
So you can see how someone like myself in a northern town, working in an industrial job, earning around the £30k per year mark can soon be way better off financially than two people living together in London, earning a combined £80k per year but having to try buy a flat at £900k.
If levelling up had really been carried out, whereby the good quality jobs were spread out more evenly right across the breadth of the UK, then the population would naturally spread out more and some of those really bad hotspots could be relieved to some extent.
What the ****. £370 per week rent for a shipping container and you end up owning nothing!
In my hometown, for £800 pcm in a mortgage you can buy a freehold, two bedroom, new build.
£370 is more than my monthly mortgage!
Northern supremacy. Getting a remote job and living in a cheap area is the way. My 3 bed terrace is £700pm and it's in the city outskirts. It's a leasehold in name only, no ground rent as they don't bother to collect it since the lease is from 100 years ago.
I live Derbyshire cheaper bus 2 to Nottingham/derby/train or jump in car if wish to however massive supermarket 5 mins away on pushbike car.
Soon they all move leicester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Sheffield Leeds Manchester Newcastle etc soon many from London as will be priced out and property Midlands and Northern will rise due to demand watch😮
With Starmer in charge if Labour I'm left wondering how long it will be before that pledge to ban leasehold makes it onto his growing list of U-turns 😕
Maybe he’ll u turn twice 🥲
I have worked in the uk construction industry 37 years and what is being built today will not last for the term of a mortgage .
Wow and here I thought I lived in a run down house... but mine was built in 1701 at least 😳 those poor people...
I never thought I would feel sorry for people who can afford a £700,000 to £900,000 property, but finding that you brand new property is now worth zero is brutal.
@@eattherich9215 Yeah. How is this even legal? Just imagine people saving for years and years to buy a property for their retirement and then.. this. Ouch.
Quote. "Following intensive consultation with existing residents, the masterplan design is based on the traditional concept of 'streets and squares' with an emphasis on buildings which have doors at street level, creating liveable spaces between them and allowing people to move across, through and within the estate....... Doors at street level eh! No wonder these places sold. Brilliant idea.
I was so confused about the whole bio... I was like.. I'm sorry are these not just EXPECTED AS DEFAULT?
To explain: Lots of older London apartment blocks are stacked on top of each other with doors that exit onto long shared balconies with one or more concrete stairwells leading down to ground level. These outdoor communal passageways are often poorly maintained or vandalised, open to anyone to wander in off the street, and unpleasant to navigate if the weather is poor. The promise of "doors at street level" is that the shared stairwells will be inside the building, maintained and cleaned by building management, and - importantly - only accessible by residents.
@@BrainMedicine oh okay that does actually make a lot more sense and make it reasonable to list it. Seems like such a strange concept from all the way down here in aus lol
The blocks these replaced were deck access ( streets in the sky)
Was seen by the residents as the main fault with the original design.
So doors at street level. Was indeed a big thing .
@@Mitch-Hendren Yeh, but it's still funny isn't it. The idea that it's groundbreaking to have a front door at street level, with actual space between people's front doors so you can walk from one to the other!
New builds are shit due to the reasons explained by Evan and the old houses are not being upkept properly by investors. They all reek of moisture, mold, outdated living plans and 20 layers of flaky wilkos paint. Finding suitable housing in the UK is quite literally impossible. We want to buy to keep and have no interesting in „climbing the ladder“ and moving homes, and at this point the only feasable purchases seem to be building our own home or buying a pre-designed home by reputable independent local businesses. Fully renovating an old build would most likely come with unforeseen issues. Coming from germany to the UK, I am truly shocked at the average persons living situations. The housing quality is 3rd world shocking.
The fact that there is already an excessive amount of demand awaiting its absorption, despite how everyone is frightened and calling the crash, is another reason why it is less likely to occur that way. 2008 saw no one, at least not the broad public, making this forecast, as I'll explain below. The ownership rate was noted to have peaked in 2004 in the other comment. Having previously peaked in the second quarter of 2020, we are currently at the median level. Between 2008 and 2012, it dropped by 3%, and by the second quarter of 2020, it had dropped from 68 to 65.
Investing in both real estate and stocks can be prudent choices, particularly when backed by a robust trading strategy that can navigate you through prosperous periods.
You're not doing anything wrong; the problem is that you don't have the knowledge needed to succeed in a challenging market. Only highly qualified professionals who had to experience the 2008 financial crisis could hope to earn a high salary in these challenging conditions.
@@hasede-lg9hj Please pardon me, who guides you on the process of it all?
The advisor that guides me is Sharon Ann Meny, most likely the internet is where to find her basic info, just search her name. She's established.
Thank you for this tip. It was easy to find your coach. Did my due diligence on her before scheduling a phone call with her. She seems proficient considering her résumé.
The punishment of a fine isnt enough, they will just loophole the money out and declare the company into administration and setup a new company that bought all the old stuff. You see it all the time in things like used car dealerships for example. What it should be is a massive fine on the company and if they declare bankruptcy along with requirements for the companies to hold on to money for 2 years prior to dividend payouts etc so they have a liquid fund to pay it. Also if they do declare bankruptcy or any suspect actions to hide money the debt is then installed upon the CEO/board as a personal debt and a further criminal investigation performed to see if they are attempting to bypass the fine and if so, statutory 5 years prison minimum up to life pending how big it is (if you are ruining the lives of hundreds of people, you should be getting 20 years in prison minimum for example).
the guy who built 53 agar grove , just got granted a planning permission to build 40 more properties
Not to mention, there is no VAT paid by developers or main contractors for new-build residential projects so they are laughing whilst the government coffers lay bare.
As someone who works as a civil engineering consultant mainly for residential developers, I would personally never buy a new build home, it is ridiculous what cost cutting shenanigans the council lets these people get away with
The twitching, teeth-grinding, blood-hungry An-Soc in me perked up at the mention of 100% penalties for companies caught directly undermining the quality of their product/service and the wellbeing of those entrusted them. The fact that it's both punitive in a moral way and also directly functional in removing the hazard of their further operation, *chef's kiss*, makes me want to pull out the placard and the poster paints
Newbuilds have been garbage for years. Many don't even last 4 MONTHS without problems (plumbing not working / walls cracking etc.), just not built right in the first place. I wouldn't touch anything built this century.
Its scary how many of these problems exisy in sydney Australia as well. It seems like housing is a giant ponzy scheme across the entire western world 😢
I knew someone who worked in the office of a company doing all sorts of new-builds, from 'basic housing' all the way up to million pound 'luxury homes'. They would get calls in every day from people who'd spent a million+ with them complaining about issues, including at one point the entire downstairs flooding from a burst pipe resulting in everyone having to move out and live in a hotel, bosses told them would be sorted 'within the week', but never sent anyone to sort it.
Company ended up closing down & setting up again under a new name, looked it up & it was already the guy's 4th or 5th housing company. It's shocking how nobody goes to jail in situations like this!
I'm so glad you're onto this, I'm astonished at what's happening in this country.
It's a lot like the school ceiling problem that we had in September. The buildings were said to be built to last 30 years. We had chicken sheds (portacabins) in my old school which lasted longer! Too much these days isn't built to last. It feels like people used to build to be remembered, to be able to look at a building that you built when you were 20 when you are 60 and know that it will still be around in 100+ years time as a legacy to those to come. We don't have that any more. People only care about the here and now, the future and passing something on don't matter any more.
No leasehold in Scotland this should be the same for all the uk !
Strangely, Sheffield has a very high number of old leasehold houses (terraced, semi-detached and detached). Most people here just accept that if they want to buy a house it’s probably going to be leasehold.
Given it's been an open secret in the double glazing industry that new build properties have been getting terrible quality doors/windows for at least 20 years...
Hi Evan, good vid but some extra points/clarifications.
There's a difference between service charge (what all flats essentially pay for maintenance of the common areas and grounds etc) and ground rent (the payment the leaseholder pays to the freeholder).
I live in a share of freehold flat in London, there's no freeholder to pay ground rent but we still pay service charge to maintain the building etc.
The unfortunate thing is there's no perfect solution as when building management is left to the owners, flat owners tend to be short-termist and only care about lowering their service charge at the expense of building maintenance and safety.
My building is 20+ years old and the reserve account we had until recently was c. £1,000....ludicrous. Flat owners even suggested we did our own fire safety checks to reduce costs... Again, ludicrous.
Leasehold has many flaws, but building maintenance responsibility landing with short-termist often financially illiterate owners also doesn't work.
Frankly a new system needs implementing, with a qualified third party setting appropriate service charges and ensuring long term maintenance and fire safety checks etc actually occur, and reserve accounts haven't been pillaged.
Great points. I grew up in a small version of this, just an old mansion house that was chopped into 4 flats in the 70s. It wasn't too bad dealing with costs from what I remember but that's because it was on such a small scale and everyone had enough money in reserve. As soon as you scale up it must get more volatile
Don't worry! The developers are in bed with the MPs, so those two groups are doing well out of all these new builds. What a heartening UK success story!
Remember.... what you are describing aren't bugs of the system, but *features!*
Once again, the free market has sorted it all out! 😂😂
developers aren't in bed with MPs, that's too facile a thing to say. As British people we need to get into the detail of this stuff and root out the real causes, not just point fingers with unjustified comments like "all our politicians are corrupt" etc. The reason we need to do that is because it's sensationalism that has led our media to be less scrupulous in holding our governments to account in the first place. The solution is not more sensationalism and hype - it's detailed analyses of the problems and honesty about the solutions.
Ok, many older properties have stood the test of time than these new units built from shady materials ever will but builders have always left behind half bricks, rubble, cement waste, strips of wire, pipework and fittings, old newspapers and whatever could be more easily brushed between the floors and downstairs ceilings than properly disposed off. As more new owners need to replace their ceilings they will find out what's left up there? I actually found the old newspspers found above our 60 year old failing plasterboard ceiling interesting to read but I digress.
Newspapers were often used to "draught proof" floors below the carpet underlay. Remember reading newspapers from the 1960s from an old flat a mate owned that had some subsidence and needed floors levelled.
I just found you!!! I am in Brazil and work with physical damages in the units built by construction companies funded by the government. Same problems everywhere! This the second video I watch! You are a great communicator! I❤it!
Luxury is a over sed word. It’s used so much with regard to property that it s just st a nonsense word.
Very true
Oh & goody, we're out of the EU now as well, sooooo, there's absolutely no higher court anyone could take the government too.
Cos this is just neglet on a level so utterly insane it's almost unbelievable.
This country really has gone so far down hill the last 14 years.
This & the state of our roads are just symptoms of how bad things are.
I mean how corrupted of a system could you even implement.
We are entirely at the mercy of these corrupted bastards now
You're only at their mercy if you comply with their stupidity.
@@amicableenmity9820: you get the prize for today's most useless comment.
@amicableenmity9820 it doesn't matter if you comply or not, the corpos are doing it either way
Planned obsolescence in housing should be illegal. Grenfell should have woken the people up to the consequences of cutting corners. Then you see high rise developments in Alperton that look the exact same and rely on the existing infrastructure. It is asking for catastrophe.
My house was built in 1837 almost 200 years old and still going strong we bought it 2002 for £35,000 4 bed terrace, OK, it needed some work, opens up straight on to the street and has a yard not a garden but who cares it's the inside that counts....modern day houses are thrown up, I know, I worked in the building plastics industry delivering to new build sites there is no way on this earth I would buy a New build.
Ive just accepted that i will never in my lifetime be able to afford to live in my own house like my grandparents could, thanks to corporate and government greed, The closest thing to me owning a new home is saving for either a brand new £40k narrow boat, or a German Barge, I'm fine with either
I've looked into boat life, and it has many drawbacks and incredible expenses such as mooring costs. You might want to rethink your plan by doing your due diligence.
I thought the same thing back in 2020 when the prices were rocketing up, but 4 years of hard savings later and I'm looking to buy a house this year. You just have to be willing to make the sacrifices and know you can't buy a 3 or 4 bed detached on one income with 4 kids like your grandparents did. 😅
I’m only 4 minutes in and it sounds like there should be a class action lawsuit against these companies and developers that build these shoddy temporary ‘homes’
My grandad and Tony Soprano always said: Never trust a man with a ponytail! But this guy is spot on!
Someone at my old work once said, "under every pony tail is an arsehole"
@@EvolutionRich That is very true! 😀
True but there are plenty of smaller builders who cut corners-unless you are an expert, how do you tell? My point was that the building regulations have been continually loosened and spaces smaller since the 1960's.
Wakefield mentioned 🎉
Hahaha a better mention than Bolton surely
@@evan anywhere in Yorkshire getting a mention is a minor miracle 😂
Evan, I heard recently that a very high proportion of properties in London are owned by foreign investors and many are unoccupied. I believe this problem isn't unique to London, Vancouver being another example. I dive into this subject would be fascinating. Thanks for an interesting video.
Yes, it's scandalous how many properties in our U.K. cities sit empty while so many of our native population sleep on the street.
I have long believed that our UK media aren't holding our government to account when it comes to allowing unbridled foreign investment in residential housing. It's a disgrace. I'd even vote Tory if they could be trusted to kick out the foreign investors. You can start with the Russians. There are reasonable ways to do it as well. For example you can introduce primary residence laws: if you are not a British citizen, then yes you are allowed to buy a property, but you would need to live in it personally for x years. (enforceable if you make it illegal to rent the property during this time.) If you move out before that time is up, then you are taxed 50% of the property value at the point of sale. Wouldn't that deter those who are only driven by profit? And wouldn't it be relatively easy to enforce?
Thanks for the investigative journalism Evan. Be careful out there. Friendly Jordies ran into some major problems in NSW Australia when it came to real estate
OMG, Evan, this had me cracking up. You are funnier than most stand up comedians my man. I can't believe your builders left this rubbish and leftover breakfast under the plinth. Crazy stuff.
building more houses will not solve the crisis. Becasue supply and demand is only a small part of house prices being what they are. Challenging supply (immigration), would have a much bigger effect.
Agar Grove was an investment scheme from Camden Council! Which means that’s it’s not some distant developer, it’s the local authority who have done this 😬 Council’s have faced budget cuts and therefore have to invest to survive, what an awful state of things!
REAL JOURNALISM THANK YOU FOR EXPOSING THESE CORRUPT PEOPLE!!!!
And if the government hadn't prevented homeowners from being able to sue the developer, none of this would have happened. Sometimes when the problem is too much regulation, more regulation doesn't solve the problem.
Why do you think the Tories would want to “solve the problem”? They are the actual landlord types that don’t want it solved.