How an Inspired Village works…

Reserve a retirement property

After probably many visits, often with friends and family, you can reserve a property in one of our retirement villages. Full details of how you do this will be given to you during your visit. The reservation fee of £2,000 is refundable (less our reasonable expenses) if you change your mind.

Exchange

We follow the normal property progression process and the team are very good at explaining exactly how this works. You will have your own solicitors advising you all the way, and they will ask us lots of questions and ensure you understand how it all works. Once you and your solicitors are happy you pay a 10% deposit at which point contracts are exchanged.

Completion

Completion normally then happens within a few weeks but we know that timing the sale of your property with one of our properties being ready can be stressful.  We also understand that often time is what is needed to get the best price for your own property – so we can offer deferred completion – explained below.

Move in

Leading up to, and on the day of, your move we allocate a person who makes the whole process as enjoyable as it possibly can be. If you really want, you can leave the whole thing to us and spend the day being pampered in the restaurant – most people can’t bear not to get involved…

Options to purchase a retirement property

Most people buy one of our retirement properties.  We sell on a long leasehold basis and the lease comes with a set of terms that have been developed over the years to ensure a happy and well-managed community. We will give you a ‘Key Terms of the Lease’ leaflet.

Options to rent a retirement property

We have recently launched an option to rent a retirement property in most of our villages. There are advantages to both purchase and rental. The beauty of renting is that it releases all the capital tied up in your property and allows you much more financial freedom – if that is what you are seeking. Everyone is different and so we spend a lot of time listening and tailoring our offering for people.

Read our blog to find out more about renting in retirement.

Deferred completion

This allows you to reserve, exchange with a deposit of 10%, and then defer your completion (when you pay the remaining 90%) for up to 12 months.  This gives you time to get the best price for your property. You can move into the village and pay rent, and if you complete within 6 months we give you the rent back. It's pretty simple and has helped many residents relax about the whole timing issue of selling and buying properties. 

Home Purchasing Service

Selling your current home on the open market can take a long time – finding a buyer and agreeing an acceptable price is just the start. 

Our new Home Purchasing Service is designed to provide a shortcut through this hassle and frustration – instead of waiting for your property to sell on the open market, we will look at it and see if we can buy it from you instead.

Please contact our friendly sales team for more details.

Assisted Sale (selling property)

When you choose assisted sale, we handle the efficient sale of your home for you. Our process is simple and we do all the hard work.

1. Appraisal and asking price

We will have your home appraised by the three best local agents and then appoint two agents to sell. The asking price is always set by you.

2. Viewings and offers

All viewings, feedback and marketing are handled and arranged by us, and we negotiate the offers on your behalf. You will always have the final decision on whether to accept or not.

3. Exchange and completion

We will handle the sales progression to exchange and completion, with Inspired paying up to £4,000^† + VAT of the proceeds of the sale towards the agents' fees.

Removals

We have a partnership with Britannia and pay up to £1,000 + VAT towards your removals.

Solicitors

We have a panel of solicitors that we can steer you towards who are fully independent but have progressed many sales within our villages and so understand the lease well, although you may well have your preferred advisers. We pay up to £750 towards your legal fees.

Senior Move Partnership (helping you downsize / declutter)

The other stress in moving is the whole process of downsizing; getting rid of acres of belongings accumulated over the years. It can be therapeutic – it can be very tough and many buyers take the opportunity to simplify their lives. We pay £390 + VAT towards Senior Move Partnership.

^† Capped at a maximum contribution of £4,000 (+ VAT)

Service charge

The service charge covers the running of the retirement village.  We will give you a long list and explanation of what it covers and how it’s managed.  We will also give you previous accounts. We don’t make any money out of service charges.  They are heavily regulated and we follow the regulations.  Our Village Advisers will tell you how it works and how much it is. Importantly, we will also give you a list of what the service charge does not cover.

Ground rent is charged at the following villages:

• Austin Heath
• Bramshott Place
• Durrants Villages
• Gifford Lea
• Great Alne Park
• Millbrook Village

Ground rent is not charged at:

• Ledian Gardens
• Elderswell Village
• Millfield Green

Hospitality services

In addition to everything we do under the service charge, the village has a wide range of hotel-type services that you can pay for such as restaurant meals, the bar, laundry and treatments.

Care services

All our staff are ‘caring’ and will go out of their way to make life in the village enjoyable. We have a full domiciliary care service provided by a partnership agency. Should you require personal care we can introduce you to the care team who can provide extensive care in your own home. Based on continual assessment and a menu of services, the overriding aim is to allow our residents to retain independence even when care is required, and so far as possible, avoid the need to move into a care home.

Assisted Living

We see that all the services that we provide in the village, including the hospitality services, utilities and meals can be combined into a package that really does assist with day to day living for many. In addition we have on average about 16 apartments in each village that we allocate as Assisted Living Suites that you can buy or rent. For those who rent, we can wrap up a package of hospitality and support to suit an individual person’s needs so that there is often no need for a care home.

Event fee – what you pay and why

So in summary, you buy or rent a retirement property, pay the service charge and then lastly, when you leave the village and the property is resold, we charge a percentage of the selling price. This percentage depends on how long you have been in the village and varies slightly between villages.

The maximum amount we charge varies between 10-24% of the selling price. Whilst this is normal in all retirement villages in the UK and overseas, our Village Advisers will explain exactly why we do this and what it is used for. It is a financial model that has grown up over the years to work very well for both operators and customers, it provides a return on investment for all the central facilities over a long period of time – thus reducing the purchase price of the properties, and it pays for our in-house dedicated resale service. For villages Ledian Gardens, Elderswell and Millfield Green, it pays for the refurbishment of the property on resale, replaces any additional charges such as Ground Rent, and allows us to cap the service charge for the first 15 years’.

The event fee for all villages apart from Bramshott, Millbrook, Durrants and Great Alne Park also goes into maintaining the village in the future which keeps the villages looking as new, and helps resale values. Uniquely, at the villages mentioned above the long-term maintenance fund is built up from the service charge.

Our resales service

Buying into a retirement community such as ours is so much more than just buying a property.  For that reason we have our own in-house sales team who manage resales as well. Vendors can of course opt to use an external estate agency but we would still be involved in the show arounds, the marketing, the promotion on and off line.  We also offer a refurbishment service.