26-05-2025
‘I've slashed my asking price by £150k. I still can't sell my flat'
London flat owners are in trouble. Not only has the average price of the city's apartments stagnated over the past nine years, according to Zoopla, many blocks have been marred by cladding scandals and a wider realisation about the perils of leasehold and uncapped service charges.
As a result, flat owners in the capital have seen their investment lose a quarter of its value in real terms, on average – and in some cases they have been unable to sell up, leaving them trapped or faced with making a significant loss.
Telegraph Money speaks to three such homeowners, who face the grim reality of selling their homes for far less than they believed them to be worth.
'It's devastating'
Laoise Davidson, 56, has been forced to reduce the asking price of her London flat by £150,000 since putting it up for sale last February.
She bought her two-bedroom leasehold flat in West Hampstead, in a converted synagogue, in 2004 for £350,000. By 2016, the flat had been given a valuation of £800,000, so Davidson assumed that she was well on her way to making a healthy profit.
But after putting her property on the market for £725,000 last year – the amount an estate agent told her it was worth – she was unable to secure a sale.
'The estate agent did a social media campaign and loads of work to get interest. He got us three viewings in three months, but then we never heard back,' she says.
As Davidson was getting married in July, she and her now-husband took the flat off the market for a few months.
'The signs were saying that the economy was doing well, so we put it back on at the end of August with a local agent – there was more interest.'
But in the space of less than a year, Davidson has been forced to slash the asking price to £575,000.
'It's devastating. It's still not really getting any interest – we had one viewing last week and one this week, and we haven't had feedback from either of them yet.
'My husband and I want to buy our forever home in London – we can't both live in my flat, as he is a piano teacher and needs more space. We are looking at houses, but it is really tricky as house prices are going up while flats aren't. We can't afford the house we are looking for, and we are really stuck.... I wish I'd sold in 2016.'
Davidson attributes part of her trouble selling to the service charge she pays on her flat, which rose from around £3,000 a year to almost £4,000 after there was a water leak in her building, raising its insurance premiums.
'There is a smaller flat on the other side of my road which has a lower service charge, and that includes a swimming pool, a gym and somebody looking after the place. We don't have any of that, but there is nothing I can do about it,' she says.
Nonetheless, Davidson thinks negative attitudes towards leasehold properties are overblown.
'I think leaseholds get a bad name – there are benefits not being discussed, it seems to be one-sided. We have a good managing agent and the building is looked after… if you [buy freehold] you have to do your own repairs and maintenance, so you end up spending a similar amount,' she says.
'But that said, I wouldn't want to go leasehold again – but that's the phase of my life that I'm in.'
'The property ladder myth is still hurting me now'
Liam Chennells, 35, bought his leasehold flat in Willesden, north-west London, in 2016. Since then, the value of the property has fallen by around 15pc, and Chennells finds himself unable to sell the property, in part because of the building's ongoing cladding issues, and the fact that it comes with an annual service charge of almost £3,000.
'The property ladder myth got me at the age of 25, and is still hurting me now. I had worked hard enough to save a significant deposit of 10pc while renting in London – I didn't have any help from my parents. It seemed like an excellent idea.
'I think we are hard-coded in Britain to get on the property ladder – it's one of the things people want to check off. It's an aspirational thing when you're doing well.'
But Liam – who now lives in Hertfordshire and has resorted to renting out his London flat – seriously regrets his purchase. He urges young people to think very carefully about buying property and taking on a mortgage, as his experience has left him wishing he had just rented instead.
'Rent everything – you get freedom, flexibility. Mortgage rates are a joke. If you extrapolate the information about the payments you have to make and for how long, it's nonsense.
'One of my big things is education – we don't get taught any of this stuff in school.'
'I won't break even. It's a bitter pill to swallow'
Eliza*, 39, who wished to remain anonymous as her property is still for sale, purchased a one-bedroom leasehold apartment in Stepney Green – a trendy area of East London – in 2016, for £440,000.
She used the Help to Buy scheme to fund 40pc of the purchase. This government-backed initiative ran in England and Scotland from 2013 to 2023, giving buyers a government loan to help them purchase a new-build home. While the loan is interest-free for the first five years, after this time interest of 1.75pc is charged on the amount borrowed, which must be repaid alongside mortgage repayments.
'I couldn't afford a flat in Zone 1 or 2 without the Help to Buy scheme,' she says. 'I didn't have a big inheritance or anything like that, and thought it was a no-brainer. I love the flat – it was perfect, with great transport links.'
However, having recently had a baby with her husband, Eliza is now desperately trying to sell up in order to buy a house outside the city. But, despite being on the market since last March, the flat remains unsold.
'The first estate agent wanted to put it on at £490,000, but we had no offers. We got an offer for £450,000, only £10,000 more than I [paid for it], so I would not break even with all the interest. That's a bitter pill to swallow. And then that offer fell through. 'We put it back on at £450,000,' she says, 'but we didn't get too much interest as it was winter.'
Eliza and her partner have made an offer for their dream home, but as the flat is still not selling, it looks like it will fall through.
'We're going to lose this house that we really want. I'm on maternity leave, so I'm not going to get another mortgage like that unless I work full-time, which I don't want to do.'
Eliza believes there are several factors at play that are prolonging the sale of her flat. One is the £240 monthly service charge.
'All the stories of service charges escalating and getting out of control are putting people off, and people generally don't think investing in a flat in London is a good idea,' she says.
She also suspects that if she had put her flat on the market at a more competitive price in the first place, it may have sold, and she would be moving into her dream home with her partner today. 'Estate agents tell you what you want to hear so you'll go with them. If they'd told me my flat was worth £450,000 originally, would I have gone with them? Probably not.'
Ultimately, Eliza thinks the price she paid for the flat in 2016 was inflated due to the Help to Buy scheme. The scheme has been criticised by experts and MPs for contributing to higher flat prices when it was active, and may have 'encouraged people to buy property they couldn't actually afford', according to Ranald Mitchell, of Charwin Private Clients.
'I do blame Help to Buy for inflating house prices,' she says. 'They knew people needed the scheme, and that it sounded great on paper.'
All things considered, Eliza is not particularly hopeful about selling her flat in future. 'We might just have to auction it and move on.'
