Fake 203

I noticed a piece about retirement flats in London this morning, in part because we might be in the market for such a thing ourselves at some point. A higher grade version of the sort of thing offered by Abbeyfield here in Epsom (and elsewhere).

The piece was illustrated with the snap above. Fancy flat with river view, with what looks like plastic grass outside. Both Gemini and Google Images agree that it is plastic grass, with Google Images offering reference 3 by way of corroboration. Snapped above. While Gemini talks of the need to keep maintenance costs down: Riverstone Living is not a charity.

It seems that the business model is that you buy a flat, perhaps for something over a million pounds. You then pay something more than 5% a year in service charge. And when your heirs sell up, Riverstone might claw back a third of the selling price. This helps to incentivise them to keep the place looking nice. And to be fair, quite a lot of older person services are included in the package.

I remembered that a few years ago we had a session in a block of flat in Ewell put up by Abbeyfield, noticed at reference 5, an operation rebranded as Southern Oaks at reference 6. They were not cheap either, but I don't remember anything about deferred fees.

Gemini explains that Abbeyfield is a model of decentralisation, of devolution (of interest to our new leader) - and the catch is that the local trustees, whom I imagine to be mostly retired professionals of one sort or another, have to carry quite a heavy management load, not least all the dealings with local authorities and various supervisory agencies.

PS 1: Shawgrass is a Berkshire Hathaway company. It so happens that BH owns seven shares in this last, so she is part owner of Shawgrass. Not sure that she will be pleased when I tell her.

PS 2: I dare say Southern Oaks will be good enough for us, should that time ever come.

References

Reference 1: The wealthy Londoners betting on a luxury retirement: Riverstone is pioneering club-like housing schemes for asset-rich over-65s - John Gapper,  Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/fake-202.html.

Reference 3: https://shawgrass.com/en-us.

Reference 4: https://www.riverstoneliving.com/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/abbeyfield.html.

Reference 6: https://southern-oaks.org/.

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