CHICAGO: Sebastian O’Kelly, a former property journalist who now runs the charity Carlex (Campaign Against Retirement Leasehold Exploitation) doesn’t mince his words when he says that buying a retirement flat or apartment may be “the single worst financial investment you ever make”.
“It is a housing sector with a justifiably awful reputation,” he adds. “So far there have been two Office of Fair Trading inquiries, numerous court cases and parliamentary debates – and the sector still is not right.”
Why? One of the problems is that these apartments are likely to go down rather than up in value.
Also, they attract many additional charges which you don’t get with ordinary flats, such as having to pay an exit fee on resale…