My husband and I are pensioners,and live in a high rise flat which we bought with our savings . The flats were to be refurbished,and we were happy to have this done as there are problems with water penetration There are a lot of other elderly residents in the block who have lived here for years. The council however,have decided that the way forward is demolition,and building new flats,of which we will be able to purchase an equity depending on the valuation they put on our flats. At the moment they are talking figures of £30K .The demolition/rebuilding will take up to 10 years to complete,as there are 12 blocks in total in the area. We dont know whether we will be first or last,but do know that there will be a lot of stress,as we will be decanted out,other tenants will be decanted in etc,depending on where we come in the scheme.We have some savings which we could use to buy a house,but as we cant get a mortgage,we cannot find anything suitable,as we don't have enough.. If we used our savings to buy a property using the open market equity scheme,would they take the proposed value of the flats in to consideration? It would mean we have no nest egg or savings if they did this.No one seems to know the answer I have asked the local estate agent but they just said it was means tested and they take everything in to consideration Another one told us that as we would be eligible for an equity share in the new build flats,then this should apply to a property on the open market as well,and as long as we could pay the equity share then they wouldnt take the sale of the flat in to consideration.Our total pensions come to £1300 a month,so we cant afford to lose the money from the flat .We have applied for Council housing,but until there is an actual demolition order on this block of flats,then we don't have enough points for anything decent.

Hope someone can advise us. Thanks Jean

You have my sympathy. I am in a similar position here in a house that will be compulsorily purchased at some point in the next years. As soon as residents start moving out, antisocial behaviour moves in and, obviously in your case, demolition cannot start until the last resident has moved out.

My advice is to tidy up your flat without spending a lot of money, get it independently valued at a figure that would buy you a similar flat nearby (the council should let you claim the cost of this valuation and any other legal fees) and negotiate with the council around that figure. The alternative to negotiating such a figure (or accepting what is offered) is to stay there until the lease is compulsorily purchased and, with suitable legal help, you may well get a better figure but you should try to avoid being one of the last people to go in my view.

It's certainly worth getting advice from someone outside the council's sphere of influence, perhaps your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

I'm making a few assumptions that may or may not be right. I am assuming that you are in the middle of the lease and I am assuming that, if you can't negotiate a price with the council, they will use a compulsory purchase order. I'm also assuming that the procedure for you in a flat in Scotland will be similar to the procedure for me in a house in England. I don't know anything about the scheme that you mention except that I don't like "schemes".

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck.

Maxsteam,Thanks for your reply. Everything you have said is true,apart from the lease as we don't have a lease here in Scotland.They will send a valuer out and we have an option of taking a paper figure for the flat to be put as an equity share in the new builds.We will still own the flat however,and be responsible for maintenance and repairs,which will be affected by the anti social undesirable element who will be decanted in.The other options are to sell the flat to the council and be out as soon as the missives are completed,and the last option is to take the money and become a tenant,but we are assuming that until you sign a tenancy agreement you are still going to be responsible for all the repairs etc.It looks like we can't win whatever the options are.At our age,we want to live a quiet peaceful life,and not have the stress of the demolition etc hanging over our heads.In the meantime,we can't sell the flat,as everyone knows they are scheduled for demolition,but no one knows when . Could be next year,could be in 10 years time .I will go to another estate agent today as they have a few properties advertised as being eligible for this LIFT scheme.I will let you know what they say.

Thanks for replying,

Jean

Good luck with it all. It is a dreadful situation. As you say, you can only end up selling to the council in practice and, unless you are lucky, you can't trust the council to work in your best interests. The council here advised not to spend money keeping this house in good order a few years ago, suggesting that the valuation wound just be a formality. Now they wont offer me more than £25 - £30k unless I let someone inside to take photographs of everything that should have been tidied up had they not given that advice. Their attitude is that it's my fault for taking their advice!

You do have legal rights but I think these only become important a few years down the line when the council get the compulsory purchase order by which time you will want to be gone. I'm the only one left in this terrace. The last people to go were threatening to brick themselves in and so on because they didn't want to leave but the last straw for them was when kids set fire to their car. We've had a giant gypsy site where some of the houses have been demolished and it seems like every week the fire brigade are putting out a fire in one of the empty houses. Life is never dull here.

My health isn't good (not just because of the scheme) so work is going slowly but I'm still not letting them in to the house until I have got it smartened up properly. If I sell for £25 - £30k, I'll end up being able to buy a caravan and join the gypsies. I believe strongly that whatever they pay should be enough to get a similar sized house nearby.

I wish I could offer more than sympathy.

Maxsteam, That's terrible,being the only one left in the terrace. At least all these flats are occupied at the moment,but I know that people will move out and undesirables will move in,and life will never be the same again. Thats why we want out before this happens.You can't be expected to buy another house for that amount of money. They should be re housing you.And what difference does the inside of your house make if they are going to demolish it?.The value of these flats has fallen to about £28K and this is a lovely big flat with spectacular views and well kept landings and lifts,and we have spent a lot of money making it nice. My neighbours got £38K for theirs last year,before the letter arrived to say they were being demolished .I hope you get settled up soon and dont have to go and live in a caravan

best wishes,

Jean

Yes, they've offered to rehouse by inviting me in to their sales office for a chat about some new houses that they're building in the area as part of a shared ownership scheme. They are priced at £107k. I'm not interested though because I want to own 100% of my own home. I would also prefer a solid old house to something new that has been built to a price. I also know that those houses are not worth anything like £107k. To buy a similar house to where I am now nearby would cost maybe 60k - 80k and that is what I am wanting to do. I do own a 1 bed flat that is empty at the moment and I will probably move from here to there before starting to look for a house somewhere else so it wont come to a caravan, but I still want them to pay me what it will cost to replace the house.

Parts of the house do look a mess. The plan was to wallpaper my daughter's bedroom so I said that she could paint on the walls until it got done. Some of what she did was dreadful and, after she painted "Emily's Room" in a big circle about 4 foot high near the door, I couldn't bear to look at it so I've already papered over that bit but, if someone is coming to take photos of the interior and then use those photos for the valuation, they will have to wait until the rest of the papering has been done there. There are quite a few other jobs but I can't get enthusiastic about it all and, as I said, my health isn't what it should be. I will probably do all the jobs in a mad rush in the few weeks before the compulsory purchase order gets done (likely to be towards the end of next year). I would just rather dig my heels in and be awkward about things than let them rob me.

If things do come to compulsory purchase, the valuations should not take into account "blight" caused by the scheme. This means that valuers shouldn't look at the tatty empty properties nearby if they are tatty and empty because of the scheme. It also means that you should be able to get a little more or a little less than what the flats were selling for before your scheme was announced. If you have a look at a site like www.houseprices.co.uk you should be able to see what more flats in the block were changing hands for and you should use that evidence (you can also contact the land registry) to demand a similar price for yours. The council should have told you who they are using for their valuations. You should also get your own valuation and then discuss those figures. My opinion is that you should say a clear and definite "no" to their first offer and then say how much you are wanting, supporting your figure with plenty of evidence. You certainly shouldn't rush into accepting anything that isn't fair to you.

Just found out some more information from a mortgage consultant at the local estate agency. Apparantly,all the Councils have been allocated a certain amount of money to implement this equity scheme,and the money has all been spent for this financial year,so no more will be released till next April at the earliest Also,you have to declare every penny of your savings,and they leave you with £5000 You have to get a mortgage to fund the rest of your share.It only applies to property up to a certain value,and they are mostly the bottom end of the market. You have to pay all the legal costs etc.i don't know what the situation is if you don't have any savings at all,but seeing as you can't get a 100% mortgage nowadays,I would presume that anyone applying has some savings.So,It's back to the drawing board for us I am afraid.

Yes, most schemes overprice the properties and have lots of terms and conditions.

You should aim to get a price for you flat that is sufficient to put you in a similar situation in a similar flat that isn't going to be knocked down.

With our purchase scheme, the council also pay £4k if you've been here for more than a year plus a 10% above the valuation plus moving & legal costs. I'm a bit uncomfortable that the moving & legal costs have to be scrutinised and paid separately, particularly as I don't trust the council.

There is no rush though. If you feel that you will get a better price after April, you should wait until then but you need to be aware that there will be lots of people telling lots of stories as though they are experts.