TIMES INVESTIGATION

Families suffer as values of retirement homes plummet

Miriam Savage bought a flat from McCarthy & Stone for £197,000. Her beneficiaries had to sell for £26,000
Miriam Savage bought a flat from McCarthy & Stone for £197,000. Her beneficiaries had to sell for £26,000

Tens of thousands of families have seen their inheritances decimated after elderly relatives paid inflated prices for new retirement homes that have collapsed in value, an investigation by The Times has found. Prices of retirement flats in developments built by some of Britain’s biggest housebuilders have plummeted by up to 90 per cent in the face of costly annual management charges and ground rents.

Analysis of Land Registry data suggests that £3 billion could have been wiped from the value of retirement homes built between 2001 and 2015. In one case, a flat bought for £197,000 in 2009 from builder McCarthy & Stone, a FTSE 250 company, was sold for only £26,000 six years later. The owner, Miriam Savage, was paying £8,200 a year in