I for example hate places like London with moderate passion, living there I consider very low quality life and certainly prefer touch with real nature, no crowds, little to no air/noise pollution, and society being more... social, to certain point of course.
40 minute commute 2x a week is fine with me, most Londoners have way more (not from there nor GB, what I write applies to all big cities to some extent). For raising kids there is no discussion, cities mostly suck despite all benefits and many kids from there show it very clearly.
The golden middle path, as usually, works the best for many after certain point in life. To be more concrete - smaller villages surrounded by vineyards and wild forests, 3 min by car from highway, 20 mins from a million-sized conglomeration with tons of work, 25 min from another bigger city, 5 minutes from beautiful crystal clear 100km wide lake. Village with well-equipped kindergarten, primary and secondary school, few shops and restaurants, in middle of wineyards, on foothills of beautiful mountains, looking at the alps few tens of kms away.
Paradise to many. Expensive one of course. London can be great compared to many places (and its ranked very high on greenery lists), but sorry it doesn't even compare unless you are properly die hard city type.
They don’t want to build more, because they would also have to lower their service charges significantly or see them fail to sell once they’ve saturated the section of the market that can afford them.
Each year we had an AGM where we elected directors (I was one for a few years) and make the appropriate decisions.
Ground rent (especially those expoential ones) is a problem, but all leaseholders have a right to manage their flats even if it's not set up that way.
The far bigger problem is the fleecehold houses, where there is no right to manage, or even see the invoice -- https://inews.co.uk/news/housing/new-build-homeowners-nda-so...
Replacing the management (or attempting to purchase the freehold) is tricky in buildings where the majority of units are sublet under ASTs; leaseholders who are landlords themselves generally don’t care how effective the management is, as long as it isn’t so bad as to disrupt their own income.
Even when a critical mass can be found, the up front costs associated mean that it is often impossible unless all the residents have access to large amount of capital.
https://www.gov.uk/right-to-manage-a-guide-for-landlords
Nothing to do with the freehold
If I own a lease and then rent it out on an AST I want to reduce my costs to increase my profits. If I can manage the block myself for £4k and an annual vote for a director, or let the freeholder manage it for £8k, then clearly I'll do the former.
Same incentive as if you are an owner-occupier leaseholder.
The right exists in principle, but 50% of flats (as I understand it, all of them, including flats that are not demised under lease, but under AST from the freeholder, and who do not form part of the quota) must agree to form a management company before it can take effect.
> If I own a lease and then rent it out on an AST I want to reduce my costs to increase my profits.
In a demand-skewed market you will just pass the higher cost on in rent; it’s not going to make it any less likely that you manage to let it out.
Furthermore, even contacting the owners of sublet flats, let alone convincing them they should spend money and endure potential disruption, can be difficult, making it hard to reach the threshold.
In a small block it might be easy, in a high-rise with 200 apartments, it’s trickier.
In a demand skewed market you'll charge the same regardless.
Two people owning identical flats, one with a 90% mortgage at 5%, one with no mortgage at all, will charge exactly the same rent.
Costs don't come into the rent charged, this is a lie perpetrated by landlords who want tax breaks.
Identical flats in the same building will have the same management charge.
Flats in different buildings are not identical, and will generally have different rents; the difference in management charge is one factor that will determine this.
Think about it - if I'm a landlord and have a lower service charge why would I charge less? That just reduces my revenue.
If I am a tenant and see one charging more than another why would I pay for the more expensive one?
However if the entire of Greater London suddenly became as dense as wesminster you could house another 9 million people.
If we were able to get a better network of transport it would unlock a lot more of the country where there is land, and there is already empty housing.