Flats
From Home And Money
We use ‘flats’ for any residential units which are part of a building, even if they are on several floors. (We also, not so frequently, use ‘apartments’ but here it doesn’t particularly mean a rented flat, which is how I understand it is used in the United States.)
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Flat types
Surprisingly - to this city dweller at least – flats make up only 7% of privately-owned residential properties. In fact, there are 5% purpose-built flats and 2% converted flats. In 2004/5 the government estimated there were 14,368,000 private homes, of which 1,055,000 (7%) were flats. 718,000 (5%) had no share in the freehold; 337,000 (2%
Flats - the legal arrangements
Mutual obligations and rights
Buying your flat involves agreements with your neighbours. Most flat developments are organised on the basis that each flat owner must comply with an identical set of rules and obligations, and enter into commitments with each other to do so. In the best organised flat developments, the flat owners control the freehold or a management company and have to get together to decide policy on service charges and other important matters.
Leases rather than flying freeholds
When flats were first created, some developers sold flat buyers the freeholds of their flats. This meant they were freeholds effectively of airspace, one above each other and not attached to real land - “flying freeholds” as they were called. This was soon seen as un-workable, because people living one above each other have to cooperate to maintain their building in a way which is not required of people living in freehold terraced houses side by side. So it became the universal practice to grant leases of flats.
Flat history
How flats were invented
Until late in the Victorian age there were only houses. The industrial age introduced the mass production of bricks and improved building techniques. As a result, ever larger and grander houses came to be built, with several floors to accommodate the large families of the time, and their even larger numbers of servants. (At least that was how it was in central London). There were severe booms and busts in the property market and builders discovered that if they were left holding a huge house they could not rent or sell, they could convert it into smaller apartments which were easier to dispose of. By the Edwardian age at the beginning of the 20th century, flats were seen as the way forward and many huge apartment blocks were built. Flats also proved more suitable for the smaller families which were by then the norm. By the latter part of the 20th century, only relatively small houses continued to remain in single family occupation. The really gargantuan properties of the Victorian age became embassies or were split up into flats. The conversion of houses into flats has continued to this day.
History of flats in London
The earliest flat were in purpose-built mansion blocks which began to be constructed in late Victorian times and were built in increasing numbers in the Edwardian period through to the 1930s.
Most flats in the prime London areas were formerly single-family Victorian houses which were then [flat conversions | converted into flats]] during the latter half of the 20th century.
In the last few decades industrial buildings, particularly in the east of London and along the Thames, have been converted into flats (often called ‘lofts’ when created from commercial or industrial buildings, after the name used in New York).
Many new modern blocks have been constructed. Modern blocks tend generally to be congregated along the banks of the Thames, where the main selling point is the view.
