Selling a Flat Without a Management Company

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Management companies play a key role with the upkeep of buildings with flats, and many buyers will be wary of making an offer on a property without such a company. This guide walks you through the pros and cons of trying to sell a flat that doesn’t have a management company, and it also provides advice on the best ways for you to attract a fair and swift offer.

1. The role of a management company at buildings with flats
2. Do management companies have any disadvantages?
3. Why the lack of a management company can cause problems when selling
4. Buyers could find it hard to get a mortgage for your flat
5. Your choices to sell a flat that doesn’t have a management company
6. Top queries about selling a flat without a management company

The role of a management company at buildings with flats

If you own a flat in a building that has several such homes, it will typically have a management company that is either a private, qualified professional agent or the flat owners.
A management company is responsible for many important tasks to keep the building well maintained. This can include creating a budget for how to handle the costs of upkeep, such as repairing any lifts, cleaning the common areas like the entrance, replacing lightbulbs in corridors, plumbing, rubbish collection and any other work that needs to be done outside of the boundaries of individual units, as the website Rapid Formations explains.
They are also usually responsible for legal, financial and other procedural requirements to keep the building in good order, such as collecting service charge payments from individual flat owners to fund the various maintenance tasks and other items, obtaining adequate insurance policies for the entire property, preparing financial statements for the building and more.
Regardless of the type of flat that you own, whether it’s one with a long lease or a short lease, several bedrooms and bathrooms or just one of each, buyers will want to know whether you have a management company.
If your flat doesn’t have one, this can create some barriers with trying to find a buyer. This guide explains what those hurdles can be but it also provides advice on solutions to still attract a speedy and competitive offer for your home, for example selling to a quick home buyer.

Do management companies have any disadvantages?

Although management companies provide important oversight and upkeep of buildings that contain flats, they can sometimes have a few drawbacks that buyers will want to know.
If your flat’s management company is a private third party, they will likely impose a fee for doing their work, which will be divided among the various flat owners through the service charges that you’re all legally required to pay. Buyers who have a strict budget for purchasing a flat could conclude that the fees they’ll need to pay make your home unaffordable to them.
Some management companies can also be unreliable and poorly operated, as the Marsh & Parsons website details. They might be slow to perform the various maintenance work and other tasks, or they could mismanage the building’s funds, creating a wide range of problems. Some buyers might want in-depth details about the management company’s track record on keeping the building in good condition, and you should answer such questions honestly.

Why the lack of a management company can concern problems when selling

If your block of flats does not have a management company, this could create significant concerns for some buyers, and they might be hesitant to make an offer or walk away from the purchase completely.
Regardless of whether the management company is a third party or run by the flat owners, it’s a vital way to ensure that the building is kept in good condition and operating properly, as , as noted on The Ringley Group’s website.. That’s why they’re so important, and if there isn’t one in place then buyers may worry about how the property will be maintained and whether it could eventually fall into disrepair.
If someone is seriously interested in purchasing your flat, their solicitor will request what’s known as a management pack, which your legal representative will prepare – this contains crucial information such as the building’s insurance details, the financial statements for the overall property, the budget for service charges for the coming year and more. Your solicitor will get in touch with the management company in order to obtain these details.
Without a management company in place, your solicitor might struggle to collect all of this necessary information and therefore not be able to send a complete management pack to the solicitor representing the prospective buyer. That will likely cause them to have concerns about not knowing how the building is being operated and whether it might fall into a declining state of repair in the future, and therefore they’ll no longer want to purchase the flat.

Buyers could find it hard to get a mortgage for your flat

The lack of a management company at your flat could be sufficient justification for a mortgage lender to deny a private buyer’s request for a loan to purchase your property.
When someone takes out a mortgage, they repay it in monthly instalments. If they experience financial difficulty and can’t keep repaying it, the lender can move to repossess the property and sell it to recoup the remaining debt. Mortgage providers may be wary of granting a loan to buy your flat, because they could worry that the lack of a management company might make it significantly more difficult for them to resell the flat, for the reasons outlined earlier in this guide.
But just because some private buyers who would need a mortgage to purchase your flat may be precluded from doing so, this doesn’t mean you have an unsellable home. Indeed, as the next section of this guide explains in more detail, one solution could be selling your flat to a quick property buyer.
These businesses don’t need to get mortgages to buy properties because they already have the required financial resources in place. And not only does this remove the threshold barrier of not begin able to afford your property, quick buyers also – as their name implies – are able to complete all the steps of purchasing most homes within just a handful of weeks. You’ll also get to avoid having to pay any commission on the sale of your flat using this approach.

Your choices to sell a flat that doesn’t have a management company

Deciding how to find a buyer for your flat without a management company is one of the last but most important choices you’ll make as a homeowner. Your four typical options are selling with an estate agent, selling to a quick buyer, selling without any help or selling at an auction.
There are various advantages and disadvantages with these methods, such as selling to a quick buyer being completely free of having to pay any commission or the sale process taking more than an entire year when you try to find a buyer on your own. The right choice for your selling situation will depend on your unique wants and needs with trying to secure a sale.
To help in making your selection, you should browse the details of the four methods below and then compare this information against your primary aims with selling, such as whether you are open to paying any fees, how quickly you would like to sell and your preferred selling price. This should assist with making clear which of the four options can achieve those goals.

Selling with an estate agent

A traditional way to sell any property is with an estate agent, who will begin by drafting a listing that includes photographs of your flat and describes the property. They’ll advertise this listing in local newspapers, online and in their office, and then organise viewings to take anyone interested on a tour of the flat. Finally, they’ll hear offers and hopefully take one to a sale.
Whilst this reduces your workload with selling, you will have to pay commission to the estate agent if they’re able to find a buyer. Usually they’ll charge within a range of 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of your flat’s final sale price, but the exact fee could be higher or lower than that. It will increases your costs because the commission is deducted right away from the sale proceeds.
If you’re looking for a speedy way to sell your flat then this might not be a good choice, because it can take many months or even an entire year at least to sell your property.
Also, it’s important to note that a buyer could make a genuine offer but then change their mind and withdraw it – and they can do this without risking any penalties so long as the contracts have not been exchanged. If this happens then it will inevitably extend your selling timeline much further because you will have to start over with the process of looking for a buyer.
Many homeowners find that the viewings required when selling via an estate agent are a major negative factor, taking up a lot of their time and seeming quite intrusive.
Check with individual estate agents if they have succeeded in the past with selling a flat that doesn’t have a management company. If they do not have such experience, they might struggle with knowing how to sell your flat and address buyers’ potential concerns.
And be sure to ask multiple estate agents for free quotes about the price at which they believe your flat will sell, and browse home selling websites like Rightmove and Zoopla to note the current and past sale prices of flats that are similar to your property. Calculating the average of all these amounts can produce a good rough estimate of the flat’s possible sale price.
It also helps to avoid a scenario where an estate agent gives you an impressively high quote even if they secretly know your flat will only sell at a much lower price. The reason for this trick is to convince you to sell using their services so that they can charge you commission.

Selling to a quick buyer

Selling a flat without a management company to a quick buyer, like LDN Properties, can often by the most rapid way of selling any type of leasehold or freehold home. That’s because they usually only take a few weeks to purchase your property, including exchange of contracts. For those homeowners seeking a speedy sale as a top priority, this can be a good option.
They’re known as quick buyers because they already have the funds in place to purchase your flat, without having to wait for weeks or even months to get approval for a mortgage to pay for the purchase. That’s why they’re able to move so rapidly with purchasing a property.
Quick buyers will also make fair offers on any type of home, even one that has an issue that could discourage private buyers – such as the lack of a management company at your flat. This applies to properties no matter their shape, size, location, age, category or other factors.
For more than15 years, LDN Properties has bought and made offers for a long list of wide-ranging homes throughout the UK that includes not just flats without a management company but also houses with a metal roof, properties with solar panels, eco homes, flats located near a junction, properties with high ground rent, flats above commercial premises, houses with mortgage arrears, properties with survey problems, homes that do not have planning permission, flats with dry rot and many other scenarios.
These companies also offer an incredibly streamlined, no-hassle and zero-stress way to sell your property. It begins when you contact them about selling your flat, and within the first hour you should receive an initial offer on your home. You will have at least a week to consider this offer, so there’s no pressure for you to make an instant decision on whether to accept it.
If you do accept that tentative offer, a representative from the quick buyer will visit your flat in order to inspect the interior and exterior before the company makes a final offer. This is the only such viewing that you’ll need to have when selling this way, which can be a great advantage for those homeowners that don’t like the prospect of many viewings with other selling options.
The last step is when the quick buyer makes their final offer, and if you accept it then their solicitor and yours will work to exchange contracts and handle the other necessary steps. As noted above, this entire process should only be a matter of weeks from beginning to end.

Selling without any help

Another way to avoid fees when selling your flat is by doing all the work yourself, without the help of an auctioneer or an estate agent. This includes making a listing, advertising it, scheduling viewings and hearing offers, hopefully taking one to completion.
It’s a massive amount of work and you won’t be able to only do it in your spare time, so it can become quite stressful. Only consider selling this way if you have a track record of selling properties, or there’s a qualified friend or family member who can help you out for free. If not, you could be looking at an entire year before you’re able to secure a buyer.
Another drawback of selling this way is that someone could make a legitimate offer to buy your flat but then later rescind it and make the sale fall apart – and so long as contracts haven’t been exchanged, they can do this and not be subject to any penalties. This will delay a sale even longer because it will require that you start over with your search for a buyer.
If one of your priorities with selling is that you don’t want to pay any commission, you could consider selling your flat to a no-fee quick home buyer as an alternative to selling on your own. These companies, like LDN Properties, make fast and fair offers to buy almost any type of home and they never charge the seller any commission. And you’d get the added plus of a much faster sale, as it will likely be completed within a few short weeks, and that covers the important final steps of exchanging contracts on the property and paying you the sale proceeds.

Selling at an auction

Yet another choice for selling your flat is through an auction, which starts when you choose the lowest price at which you’re willing to sell the property – this is known as the reserve price. People who attend the auction then get to place bids starting at this price and increasing.
There are two types of auction; modern and traditional. With a modern auction people can place bids on your property 24 hours a day, seven days a week for as long as your listing is active. With a traditional auction your listing will be advertised in the run up to the auction being held on a set date, with a small amount of time that day for people to place bids on your flat.
If you do not get any bids on your flat at the auction then it remains unsold, and this will require you to begin again with looking for a buyer, possibly adding many months to the schedule.
If you get just one bid, at the reserve price, then this is a legally binding deal to sell your home to the bidder, and the buyer can sue you to enforce the sale if you attempt to abandon it. For that reason, you must ensure that the reserve price you select should produce some profit that you’ll get to keep after you have paid the auctioneer whatever commission they charge.
Typically, auctioneers will take a fee of 2.5 percent of a property’s auction sale price, and this is subtracted immediately from the sale proceeds, and therefore add to your expenses.
It can be a good idea to ask auctioneers if they might be open to lowering their rate of commission, or having the winning bidder pay a share of your costs. But they are not obliged to do so and you might even find some companies will charge even more than 2.5 percent.
But this can be a long process, and it has several waiting periods involved, including many weeks or even months between when you choose to sell your home this way and when the auction occurs. If you do find a buyer, they’ll have about 28 days after the auction to sign all the required legal documents and complete the other steps to finalise the purchase. That means auctions may not be an ideal choice for homeowners looking to sell in a hurry.
Some auctioneers could also be open to negotiating a shorter deadline than 28 days for the buyer’s tasks, but others may allow the winning bidder even more time.

Top queries and answers about selling a flat without a management company

Flat owners thinking of selling quickly often have some questions to ask us before making a decision, ranging from the time it takes to sell a property through to selling a home in poor condition. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a flat without a management company: